


Through Fire, Storm and Shadow

by QueenOfPlotTwists



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Boys In Love, Boys in dresses, Cause Yami and Yugi look good in stresses, Crossdressing, Darkshipping, Gothic, Gothic Literature, Haunted Houses, Human/Vampire Relationship, Inspired by an Aurelio Voltaire Song, Lemons, Librashipping, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Past Lives, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut, Songfic, Vampire SMut - Freeform, Vampire Sex, Victorian References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfPlotTwists/pseuds/QueenOfPlotTwists
Summary: Yugi and his brother, Yami, inherit a magnificent manor in the moors. Yugi cannot help but feel drawn to it for reasons he cannot explain. Little does he know that the house and its vampire occupants have more secrets than he  ever realized…Lost Memories, Past lives, Magic Rituals and Dark Truths haunt the halls, determined to bring its lost ones home.
Relationships: Marik Ishtar/Mutou Yuugi, Yami Bakura/Yami Yuugi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. The Night, She Calls Me

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who freaked out when the Voltaire Vampire series disappeared, Don't panic, I just decided to edit them up and combined them together into one fic...with a MUCH better Title.
> 
> This series was inspired by Aurelio Voltaire's music, which I absolutely love, and inspired this idea of a full-fledged homosexual themed Gothic novella. 
> 
> I am honestly considering turning this into an original novella. Any thoughts or suggestions?

  
  
  
  


_I'm trying to earn a set of feathery wings_

_To take me away from here_

_It's me you leave--_

_You're gone from here_

_Don't leave from here_

_Don't leave me here_

_I hate it here_

_You're gone from here_

_Don't leave me here_

_I need you here_

_I need to see you smile_

— _Feathery Wings_ , Aurelio Voltaire

  
  
  


**Part I : The Night**

**I**

_The day is the wife whom I elude_

_The one to whom I should be right_

_Although forewarned by peers and kin_

_I always get into the night._

_—The Night, Aurelio Voltaire_

_The night’s shadowy blackness was made all the more umbrageous by the storm clouds suffocating the stars with melancholy curtains of rain: appropriate since they’d come here to do murder._

_Lightning flashed in the faroff sky and for an instant the world was noonday bright: the vast expanse of the moors glowing gray like rolling hills of silver coins and the forested grounds cluttering the back of the house shook and rattled like terrified hands cowering in clusters behind the far more bolder main house, indominably challenging the fierce storm and fiercer winds._

_It stood imperiously atop the high flat plateau: austere, angled, and aristocratic. The huge castellated mansion dominated the landscape like the warlord’s throne. Grand Gothic towers and turrets topped with spires dominated the roof like the points of a King’s crown. The vaulted ceiling sported majestic flying buttresses and finely carved tracery like an embellished armor. The multitude of arched windows shimmered with prismatic images like someone had scattered jewels. The tall, wide windows glowed yellow with warning, an imperial judgemental light._

_Spires and second floor porches were trimmed with iron wrought fencing, thorny with caution like the teeth of some terrible guardian. Tall brick chimneys stood in attention like loyal senetials The lightning flashing behind it, illuminating the details of the grand turrets, the spires of the roof, the jutting glass conservatory and the shadowed front porch. The soft gray shingles and plum red bricks, black in the darkness: a lacework of shadow and light like the face of some tyrannical god commanding all with an iron fist._

_They expected no less from the home of the monster that destroyed their lives. They exchanged looks, their coattails writhing in the stormy winds, clawing like mad demons eager for bloodshed. Their glowing eyes met the others, visible through the darkness despite the shadow of their hoods. They glittered with murderous delight, pointed teeth flashed white. Lightning struck once more behind them illuminating them both: the bold burgundy and rebellious purple of their cloaks that did nothing to disguise them within the shadows. The stark bone white and pale blond of their spiky hair as wild and untamed as their savage thirst, the glint of metal strapped to their sides like the silver teeth of a predator._

_They leapt from the top of the mountain and glided across the moor, riding the storm. The howl of the wind pushed at their backs guiding them towards their destination._

_His white-haired companion laughed maniacally, mad with grief and glee and the gracious glory of vengeance. He flashed his friend a knowing smirk, and they exchanged a nod before altering their descents. He ascended to the second floor, his white-haired partner in crime, lowering towards the grounded levels where his target slept gloriously naive of danger in one of the grand lower rooms._

_His own was no doubt asleep in one of the grand rooms upstairs._

_He sniffed the wind, tasted the sweet, intoxicating ascent of hazelnut and chocolate and strawberries and fresh blood. It was like ambrosia in his throat and he felt the weight of his own fangs in his mouth as eager and impatient as he to sait the red thirst. He followed the scent, enveloping him like madness, a madness called freedom, a madness called rage, a madness called vengeance._

_Something sweet spiced his tongue and he stopped, turned and dove towards it: the open window where it came from, rattling and obvious as a bull’s eye, and there beyond the empty space, the object of his obsession rested peacefully on the bed._

_Like a little entry on the silver plate of his bed._

_Like a piece of cake just ready and waiting to be devoured._

**II**

_She sways in her velvet dress_

_And pulls me towards her in the dark_

_While the others rest_

_While the others rest_

_—The Night, Aurelio Voltaire_

Yugi’s eyes popped open with a gasp.

He sat up and found himself alone in his bed, looked around but found not the whispery drapes nor the large canopy bed he recalled from his dreams but the simple clean crisp sheets of the hotel single he’d fallen asleep in. His older brother, Yami, curled up like a cat in a nest of blankets and pillows snored loudly in the bed next to him. 

Releasing a sigh of exhaustion and disappointment, Yugi rubbed his face and fell back against the pillows. 

The dream again...the same dream that had haunted his nights for weeks now. He had not had the heart to tell Yami, knowing all too well the stress of grief and moving had wrought upon him since their Grandfather passed away. In true mature fashion of an elder sibling, Yami had taken it upon himself to arrange the funeral, sell the Game shop that was their childhood home, summon the movers and arrange their tickets, and though he asked Yugi for help and knew he did not have to do it on his own, Yugi knew he craved the distraction, the necessity of completing the minor, minute details and getting them out of the way so he could enjoy their fresh start in its entirety. It made Yugi smile, as he climbed out of bed and slipped his feet into his slippers. With a smile, he tugged the sheets that had fallen to the man’s waist up to his chin. Yugi’s smile widened when Yami purred and nuzzled deeper into his nest of warmth, as he slipped outside onto the wooden balcony.

The inn they were staying at was as picturesque and antiquarian as the surrounding town: a labyrinth of cobblestone street and jutting Tudors. Their exposed ribbing and slanted rooftops all crowded together gave the town a sweet, fairy tale aesthetic. The wide streets opened to a market square where the stone cottages would advertise their wears in charming shop windows and food stands sold fresh fruits and vegetables and further down the alley was a harbor where the ships came in. 

Yugi had fallen in love with it at first sight. He could easily imagine calling this place home. 

The villagers had been so kind and welcoming of the two boys when they first stepped off the train platform into another world that appeared lost to time. The quiet, country life seemed so much quieter and simpler than the loud, riotous noise of the city where they’d grown up: the constant cacophony of smells and cars and claustrophobic concrete towers did little to ease Yami’s anxiety, and though Yugi had been far more adaptable, he suspected his older brother who’d grown up used to the far deserts and constant traveling of their younger days with their archeologist parents, never truly felt like he belonged or at home in the loud, obnoxious city. Yugi understood, but here in this wild, forgotten land where the mist rolled over the moors after the rain and the rolling hills and the breeze sang--he could imagine his brother calling this place home. 

There was an untamed uncultivated beauty about this place. something rough-hewn like it had been pulled directly from the earth and wrought from water and stone as opposed to metal and iron.

And in the heart of it all, rising from the mist and the moors like some fairy tale castle of another world, the magnificent Gothic Revival Mansion that he and Yami would soon call home. Though vacant for nearly two hundred years it had been willed to them from their mother--her request they were not to know if it until after their Grandpa had passed. Some distant cousins had seen to the repairs and the upkeep and the descendants of the original staff and housekeepers maintained its grandeur. Its fate was theirs to decide. 

The decision had been surprisingly easy. 

Their childhood spent traveling abroad with their parents, enjoying a wealth of freedom and cultural experiences, neither boy had ever had a permanent home except their Grandfather’s game shop. With his passing and both boys past their college years there seemed to be no point in keeping it. Their grandfather had been the fun and laughter and heart of the place. Without him there was nothing left for the building but to die, and neither of them wished to see the legacy he had built suffer with such indignity. They had mutually agreed to sell it, to leave the city behind with its ghosts and its memories. The mansion and the moors it occupied, promised a fresh start and a place to call home. 

But it was the mansion that drew them, like a lost lover whose arms were welcoming them home. Even now, as Yugi watched it vanish and reappear between the mists and shadows of the star strewn night like a magician disappearing into smoke, all Yugi could do was longingly sigh. There was something deeply alluring about the house itself, something strange and familiar, like reconnecting with an old friend whose name and face you could not quite remember. Perhaps it was the way those stained glass windows glittered like arched eyes, or the way it arched itself appearing both august and...was it cautious? All Yugi knew was one look at the place and he knew he and Yami had to own it. 

Unable to contain his excitement, Yugi slipped back inside and dressed quickly. He packed a water bottle, snacks, a book, a blanket and flashlight and a first aid kit in his leather knapsack and picked up his shoes. Quietly, as to not wake his sleeping brother--Yami had ears like a cat--he slipped outside the door, pulled on his shoes as he hopped down the hall and let the innkeeper know he would be back early. He unlocked one of the twin bikes they’d rented from the shop, pulled his jacket over his shoulders to combat the cold and peddled down the cobblestone streets out of town and up the dirt paths towards the majestic manor, glowing, beckoning in the starlight.

The house loomed from the thick silver fog as he grew closer, like a curtain being pulled back from a stage. Yugi cast another glance over the grassy knolls and heather-strewn hills, the jutting granite stones speckled throughout and the steeper slopes. Yugi could imagine himself living here. Having the cliffs and the caves to explore, racing up the hillsides and venturing into the bogs, enticed by the danger. Could imagine looking out over the moors and the white-capped sea from the house’s huge windows and curling up by the fireplaces with a good book while the orchestra of the storm raged outside. 

Skidding to a stop just outside the entrance lot, Yugi’s eyes widened allowing him to take in the full effect of the visage. To his amazement the house looked even more mystical and frighteningly alluring in the darkness with the shadows playing off the gray shingles and the plum red bricks shimmering like onyx, the starlight playing off the stained glass images in the arch-like windows like the many emotions of monstrous eyes and the shadows playing across the tracery as if to make the animals and images carved their come alive in the dark. The eyes of its windows all seemed to glance down at him, like the multiple eyes of a spider, but scrutinizing him curiously like an owl with a bright, shiny object. 

For weeks they’d researched blueprints, read histories and documents. The townsfolk had all manner of ghost stories and urban legends about the place, all circulating around the mysterious circumstances of the old Lord’s death and that of his two sons. Rumors ranged from accusations of murder and blackmail to more personal and passionate motives of love and vengeance. More fantastical imaginings told stories that the Lady was a witch and had cursed her husband upon her death. Others said vampires fell in love with the sons and hoped to transform them and their Father in a fit of fear and vengeance, attempted to burn the place to the ground and succeeded only in killing himself. There was nothing but mysteries and secrets. The surrealist allure only added to its charm and otherworldly magic. 

Built in the late Victorian Era, the house was old and looked like it: baroque in nature, the Gothic furnishing involved fantastical creatures and surrealist otherworlds that had fallen into ruin and it was beautiful in it's decrepitness. Though old, the house was indeed in good repair, the gables strong, the spires pointed and majestic, the windows polished and clean, despite the woody skeletons of overgrown ivy spider webbing the glass walls of the conservatory and the creak of the front porch steps. 

To Yugi, it resembled a forgotten cake left standing on a silvery green tablecloth. The cream colored trimmings of the towers shimmered beneath quaint circular roof caps. The iron fencing around the roof and the second floor porches both rusted and rich with climbing vines. Dark green ivy and golden sassafras flourished amid the crenellations. Campaigns of climbing roses burgeoned carelessly over the front porch window sills and framed the doors. The shadows played across its nooks and alcoves dances and darted like wicked little sprites making mischief. 

Yugi adored everything about it. 

Eagerly, he ascended the steps, admired the blooming flowers and painted vines curling all around the white oak paneling, the harlequin stained glass pattern of the front doors, the scrunched up little face of the gargoyle with the door knocker in its mouth, then slipped the key into the lock and turned it.

  
  
**III**

_Heed the call the time has come_

_For you children of the Night_

_Mother’s come she is the Night!_

_—The Night, Aurelio Voltaire_

His trained ears perked alive and pointed as knives at the sound of the key turning, the ancient locks groaning under the weight followed by the unmistakable sound of the grand doors opening with the shriek of rusted hinges and the groan of antiquarian wood.

Someone was in the mansion.

Someone who was not supposed to be there.

The sharp points of his white teeth glowing in the golden dim of the candlelight curled into an amused smile. He rose from his chair and grinned as he swept in front of the mirror, grateful that the old superstition about mirrors and their kind was false. His pale blond hair fell in wild, unkempt spikes all around his shoulders and he ran a hand through it hoping to tame the frizzy mane, straightened his earrings and smoothed wrinkles of his dress shirt and royal purple vest, both cut to expose the taunt pentagram of his navel. He finished his white gloves off the dresser and pulled them on. Snatched the red and black cape off the coat rack with an elegant sweep of his arm.

It fell like wings around his shoulders, shadowed and silent.

The windows outside opened to the silvery moors and the star-strewn sky. the night rich and deep, swayed in a dress of velvet strung with shimmering stars winking in and out of the mist. The moon high over the hillside in all its golden glory, a promise and a premonition. 

Soon two hundred years of waiting would finally come to fruition.

Checking his appearance one last time, he slipped out of the candlelit room and down the tower’s spiral steps. Ever cautious as he crept across the second floor and past the master bedroom--the only room in the house kept perpetually dark. Spotted the tufts of white spikes peeking out from the pillows. Watched the steady rise and fall of the heavy blankets, heard the loud snore. His companion remained silent and undisturbed just as he had since that dreadful night.

He inhaled a sharp breath hoping to calm his nerves and gasped: smelled the perfumed allure of hazelnuts and chocolate and strawberries and fresh blood. The scent was too rich and too familiar to be anything else than what it was.

Spinning on his heels, he flew down the spiraling steps.

Someone was here.

And he needed to find out who.

**IV**

_It just seems very strange to me_

_Not her quiet lonely streets_

_And draped in all her mystery_

_Could be so sweet and comforting_

_—The Night, Aurelio Voltaire_

The house was even more grand and impressive inside than it was outside. Wonderment caused Yugi’s eyes to bulge, his flashlight illuminating the velvet wallpapers and polished dark wood floors and the rich area rugs, the crown moldings and the 18th and 19th century furnishings, the magnificent rooms and the grand hallway. Just like the blueprints had promised, the massive shape of the manor wasn’t due to the number of rooms in the house but the sheer size of them. 

As Yugi stepped into the wide foyer whose arched windows and buttresses spread like wings, flooding the room with the natural light of the moon casting silver shadows over the richly orange, green and gold rug. The floors creaking invitingly under his every step, his flashlight illuminating something new and exciting. Mystification and wonderment caused Yugi’s eyes to bulge and he explored with childish curiosity. 

On either side of the foyer, Yugi’s flashlight spotted two smaller rooms. One a small lounge or living space with a huge ornate fireplace and enormous framed bookshelves. Yugi could easily imagine a cheery fire burning there, and filling those shelves with his favorite books, spending hours sprawled out on one of the couches lining the walls reading. Saw Yami falling asleep in the huge velvet armchair position before the fire with an empty tea mug on the side table and his favorite book in his lap. The opposite room was a small study, well lit by the huge windows, the dim blue walla bare of furnishing. An imperial desk and two small chairs and tables filled it. A cozy little office nook if they wanted to keep it that way, or perhaps they could move that desk upstairs and use it for something else.

The foyer opened to an enormous grand hall that took up the majority of the central house and all the other rooms were connected too. Elaborately carved side tables and embroidered chairs lined the walls creating charming sitting and reading areas. Iron candelabras branched out of the woods in uniform fashion, glittering stars against the calm deep blue wallpaper printed with spiraling leafy vines patterns. The hall was so huge it took up nearly two floors so that the second floor hallway was a single balcony encompassing the first floor and the staircases spiraled up the towers and the vaulted ceilings and ribbing were exposed. 

The rest of the rooms branched off the hallway: huge ornate double doors slid open offering the full vistage of the room for an open feel or could be closed for privacy. Each one sported a majestic fireplace and stunning stained glass windows, filling the room with natural light. Turrets jutting off the room offered private sitting areas and tables where Yugi could just picture himself sitting, writing poetry or reading books while looking out the windows and into the world beyond. Others offered lovely views to the walled garden and the lovely grounds out back. 

Pressing his face against one of the windows, his flashlight a poor substitute for the sun, he made out small wildflower parks, a combination of manicured lawns and a natural world left to its own.

At the end of the hallway, the golden beam of Yugi’s flashlight revealed a grandly ornate staircase dominating the far corner: its huge, creaking, carpeted steps led to a midfloor landing, an alcove wide enough to be its own room that branched into two sets of spiraling stairs, two separate entrances to the second floor. One more ambitious than its twin, continued to the third floor tower corridors. 

Adjacent the steps, another set of grand oak doors that when he pushed them open revealed in all its splendor an enormous ballroom: the floor a checkerboard pattern in black and white, the cylindrical shape of the walls were an entire series of arched windows framed in metal ornamentations of vines and serpents, songbirds and swimming fish. Heavy curtains draped over the enormous arched windows. Yugi would only imagine what the room looked like in daylight when the curtains were open and the room was flooded with light. Yugi spun around in the room, taking in the painted ceiling’s colorful images of dancing monsters and maidens. Spotted the stunning balcony jutting out from the second floor like a viewers box overlooking the entirety of the ballroom and imagined some great king overlooking his entertainers from it. Imagined the parties they could have here. The stories these walls must have. 

Suddenly, he envisioned music flooding these halls: an orchestra of strings and strange tunes. Imagined long low tables laden with food and spinning bodies fluttering about in magnificent costumes and colorful masks. 

His flashlight caught something in the corner, and Yugi saw the steps of a raised dais in the gap between the two doors. Examining the dais again, Yugi spotted something curious and flashed his light. A gargoyle face looked back at him and he fell back landing on his butt, the flashlight slipping from his fingers and rolling away. In a panic Yugi rolled over and snatched it up, holding it like a weapon. Blue-white light illuminated the ugliest chair he’d ever seen--an enormous brass thing whose top was shaped like the head of an enormous gargoyle with it wings sprawled out, its long monstrous hands forming the arm rests and its base carved up with what appeared to be kneeling manticores. 

“Blah,” Yugi made a disgusted sound at the gwady, goofy monstrosity. He hadn’t believed the stories, but apparently they were true. The old lord, known for his arrogance, liked to receive guests while sitting in that god-awful throne. 

They were definitely not keeping that thing. What a waste of perfectly good space.

A smile slit Yugi’s face, a wicked idea forming in his mind. He climbed the steps, examined the throne-like chair from all angels and plopped right down into it, laughing at his own silliness as he imagined himself a vampire king looking down on all his subjects. No one said he couldn’t have a little fun.

And then something moved.

Yugi froze. “Oh no,” He jumped up, his heart sinking right into his stomach as mechanical sounds suddenly clicked and clanked and churned. The chair did not move but the eyes of the gargoyle started to glow. Yugi stepped back, tripping over his own feet and he descended the stairs backwards and landed hard on his butt, hissing as pain shot up his lower back and tailbone. A metallic groan sound suddenly echoed through the rooms like pipes churning water. Suddenly, in a single flash the gas-powered lamps of the house came alive with flickering flames. Yugi screeched and jumped up as an eerie golden glow filled the room, illuminated the whole house and the first floor, and the giant, drape covered windows between the gaps in the rooms. 

Above him he saw the vaulted ceiling was not empty, as he first sought but in place of a chandelier and enormous planetarium bloomed to life, each of his planets and moons alight with a strange color symbolic to its planet. With an ancient grinding of gears, the massive thing rode to life, and started moving like an enormous clock counting down time. 

“Well, well, well…” A raspy, haughty voice thickly accented, spoke of desert sands and foreign suns. 

Yugi’s heart stopped. Slowly, unwillingly, his stomach doing somersaults and his heart trying to crawl its way out of his mouth, he turned around.

There, standing in the illumination of the planetarium and the gas lamps on the balcony like he owned the place, black cape spread about him like wings, and ghostly lavender eyes sparkling wickedly, was a man. A man whose smile slit his face like a crocodile’s. A smile that revealed a very sharp set of gleaming white teeth.

**V**

_Come with me to the Other Side!_

_—The Night, Aurelio Voltaire_

He looked nothing like the vampires in the stories: he was not pallor as death, his hair was neither straight, nor smooth, nor black as night; his eyes were not red, he was not tall or gangly thin, no he was…he was…

He was the most beautiful man Yugi had ever seen.

Delicious mocha-colored skin like the perfect mixture of cream and coffee. A lion’s mane of wild platinum blond hair fell a halo of thorn bushes about his shoulders. His round face boasted sharp cheekbones and a finely pointed chin made for smiling—or smirking. Long limbs boasted firm muscles and a sculpted chest that the white dress shirt and brocaded violet vest only emphasized, the style that of a Victorian Fairy Tale prince, but were cut to expose the well toned torso of his naval—the sight of which sent a flood of heat into Yugi’s cheeks until he was sure he was cherry red, and further south until his jeans felt tight. Long legs advertised by the tight black pants boasted slender hips and beautifully sculpted thighs that made it hard for Yugi to think, let alone breathe.

But most mesmerizing and mysterious of all were his eyes—sharp and almond shaped and accentuated by smooth black khol lines and thick, curvy black lashes, all serving to highlight their stunning color, a soft pale lavender, like clouds at the dawn, or the beginnings of twilight, or pale amethysts or lilacs (his favorite flower). They hypnotized him with their beauty. Sparkled with a wicked delight and quirked a glimmer that tugged his smile: a smile that promised things, pleasant things. But when that smile tugged and curled revealing a crocodile’s grin, Yugi saw them: the sharp points of pearly white teeth that could only be fangs, peeking through the mane of his hair, the knife-pointed tips of long ears that had no hope of disgusting him as human; and small, sharp claws beneath his gloves—the whole thing gave him a more wild and organic nature instead of the stereotypical count.

Yugi gulped, more surprised than afraid.

Those eyes were suddenly on him again, widening as if in surprise. The whole of it transformed his expression to one of confusion for so quick an instant Yugi could've thought he’d imagined it. Then again, his face transformed: his smile curling at the corners, fangs bared and his eyes, oh God, those eyes were hungry.

“Hello, hello,” the man, no, not a man, pnly one word formed in Yugi’s mind as he stared at him, said in a deep, curled voice, high with youth and guttural with arousal. Instead of taking the stairs, the man climbed onto the thick banister, walked about it with all the fearless grace of a predatory cat. Those sparkling eyes never left Yugi’s. “And here I thought you would never come?”

He swaggered about, Yugi taking cautious steps back and around to keep their gazes locked, but caution made him clumsy and his feet were constantly tripping over themselves. That silky tone catching him off guard, Yugi forced himself to stay defiant. To not show fear, though his heart was hammering. 

Something about that voice, those eyes was familiar. 

Achingly so.

“Who are?” Yugi demanded forcing all his defiance into it despite his trembling. “What are you doing in my house?”

The man, vampire, stopped. Stared at him as if caught off guard by the question. His eyes flashed with disappointment and what might’ve been hurt. It was gone in an instant. “You don’t...know?” he groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s disappointing.”

A smirk split his face and his smile showed teeth, those hungry eyes absolutely blazing. A shiver running down his spine, Yugi never felt so terrified and turned on in all his life.

“My name…” he began, low and relaxed as thunder, each syllable a purr. “...is Marik.”

Yugi nearly tripped. Something about that name awakened something lost inside of him flooding him with a heat that taunted and tantalized and terrified him all at once. 

“Why are you in my house?” Yugi steeled himself. “Are you one of the housekeepers? Or is this some kind of sick joke?” He rattled on, clenching his fists in rage, but the excuses were more for himself than any desire for answers.

Instead of answering, the man stepped off the banister with an elegant, graceful leap, landed with an imposing swoop at Yugi’s feet and rose with all the grace and intimidation of a shadow. Yugi stumbled back, all bravado gone as he stumbled.

“This is no jest,” Marik slid forward, gloves hands rising to cup Yugi’s cheek, listened to the musical rhythm of his heart galloping in his chest, took in the luminous allure of those eyes and shuddered. Sparks of defiant and courage glittering there in spite of the tremor of fear. 

He was a vision of loveliness: skin as soft and pale as lilies, wide round cheeks burning a bright rosy color when he flushed, and an elegant point of his chin and a generous mouth made for smiling. A crown of raven black spikes dipped in rich ruby red adorned his head, soft as feathers and a forelock of golden sunbeams framed an angelicely round face. He was a wisp of a thing, petite and slender like the curve of a wildflower but there was a quiet strength to his bones and his blood practically sang with it. And most mesmerising of all were those gorgeous eyes: deep, dark and penetrating like two moonlit amethysts. Those plump, pretty lips just begging to be kissed...by all the Gods above he was beautiful.

He leaned down to kiss those lips but found himself swatted away, to his own shock. 

“Oh hell no!” Yugi snapped, scrambling to his feet. 

Instead of running, he stood imposingly over the taller, older man with impressive dominance for his demure size and scolded. “I don’t know what movies you’ve been watching body but let me make one thing perfectly clear, just because you’re attractive and I’m gay does not mean I’m going to sleep with you, or make out with you. The whole vampire thing has been done to death. I’m going out on a limb and assuming you live in the town right? So you probably know the rumor about this place. Fine! Take those stupid fangs out and we can have a normal conversation. By the way, I own this place. My brother and I, and I won’t press charges for trespassing, if you agree not to do this again, got it?”

Marik blinked, stunned, licked his upper teeth as if to make sure his teeth were still there. Then he did something Yugi never expected--he laughed.

“HAHAHAHA! I knew it!” The man jumped up, turned about in an exuberant dance of triumph. “Such spunk! Such spirit! I always adored that about you! Ha!” He turned about again before turning back to the gaping Yugi with an amorous grin. “You haven’t changed at all, Yugi.”

Breath froze in Yugi’s throat, his whole body felt paralyzed as stone. “How...do you know my name…” Yugi hadn’t told him, did not know him...and yet something about this man...this boy...this vampire...this Marik...why did his laughter stir something in his chest? Why did his smile make him shiver with a dreadful delight that made his blood sing and his loins ache? Why was he so achingly, painfully familiar? What was this overwhelming sense of familiarity?

Yugi shook his head unshed, tears welling up behind his eyes, but he refused to let them shed. “Who are you? _What_ are you?” He shook his head but the overwhelming ache did not ease, and he clenched his forehead to stop the flow of tears. “What is _this_?”

Marik’s smile curled at the corners, a serpent’s smile. “It’s because, love,” he whispered, soft as a kiss and wicked as sin. Darkness swirled at his feet and when Yugi remembered his flashlight, it dropped from his hands in shock, the shadows swirling around him not some trick of the light, but the living essence of darkness moving to his command. “I know you.” 

“As for who and what I am? Well,” he chuckled, taking elegant steps towards him. Those claws reached to stroke his cheek. Frozen in terror and confusion, Yugi let him. “We can discuss that later?” That fanged smile moving to press its lips against his.

Shrieking, Yugi could bear it no longer and with a mighty, reckless swat of terror, he swiped the hand away and bolted from the ballroom and fled for the doors. He didn’t make it far as the foyer doors slammed shut. The lamps blazed alive like fire demons all about him, casting monstrous shadows that reached for him with clawed hands. He gasped and spun around. Marik stood haughtily in the doorway, rolling his eyes and sighing flamboyantly. Then his eyes alighted, smoky lavenders glowing maniacally in the fire glow of the gaslight. 

“How about we make this a little more _fun_ .” Yugi did not like the way he pronounced that word and bolted. 

The snapping of his fingers echoed deafeningly behind him.

Shadowy tendrils suddenly erupted from the floor like some sort of monstrous flower blooming all around him. The petals shot like vines ensnaring his wrists and feet and around his waist. Yugi screamed and fought, kicked and screamed as they enveloped him in a cocoon of darkness, then suddenly burst open like a blooming rose. Emerging like a butterfly, Yugi, gasped, airborn in wondrous amazement as his old jeans, sweater and sneakers evaporated like mists and the shades wove him a new gown. 

A magnificent gothic concoction of flowing black and purple skirts, feathered in layers with a ruffle of white underskirts. A slender bodice hugged his chest, cut in a sweetheart neckline: black velvet trimmed with a sparkling pearl and amethyst brocade and tied with silky black ribbons. Fishnet sleeves ended in black wrist gloves. A set of long black boots laced from ankle to mid-thigh completed the look and to Yugi’s shock and horror, his underwear had been replaced. 

Blushing furiously, he stared back at the vampire, a mixture of horrified shock and reluctant gratitude and utter bewilderment. While he was open enough about his sexuality, only Yami knew he liked to wear dresses occasionally. And yet something about this one felt as achingly familiar as the rest of this place, and yet a hazy fog of smoke and shadow clouded the answer.

The vampire--or even Yugi couldn’t deny that he was one now--licked his lips, appreciatively. “Now that looks lovely on you. Then again you look lovely in everything you wear.” He teased, grinning like a school boy.

The vampire stepped closer. Yugi stepped back, but the vampire matched his retreat, step for step, until Yugi found himself back against the locked door, and the older boy towering over him--his only option to run. Thinking quickly, studying the other’s movement’s Yugi feigned left, waited until the other moved then pushed all his weight into the shove and shot left through the hall and into another room, half-stumbling in his haste. How the hell did Yami walk in these things?

He shrieked when the vampire followed him, laughing “Hide and seek huh? Naughty little impling.” Yugi rolled out of the way when he lunged for him. The corridors and rooms, all traps, he bolted up stairs trying this luck with the second floor and slipped into an alcove until the vampire passed and made a mad dash down the hall towards the second staircase.

It struck him with horrible, revealing clarity that he knew exactly where he was going--knew which direction to take, which corridor to turn and which room led where. His vision became hazy as he looked about the furnishings and hallways, all of them suddenly becoming sunshine bright and new as if he’d stepped back in time: he heard shrieks of laughter and delight as he played this little chase game of cat and mouse. Saw it end with someone catching him by surprise and scooping him into their arms, attacking his neck and collar with kisses and love bites as Yugi shrieked with delight and half-hearted protests when those strong hands moved to undo the lacings of his bodice. 

Yugi grabbed his head and shook it freeing himself from the visions and found himself in the shadowed, ancient halls of the house with a vampire that wanted to either eat him or fuck him chasing him.

He shook his head and made to run only to slam into a hard, heavy chest. Arms wrapping around his waist trapping him there and Yugi screamed when he came face to face with the vampire. 

“I win,” he shrieked, delighted like he’d won a children’s game. “Wanna play again? You know how much I love to catch you.” 

Overcome with rage and frustration, Yugi released a monstrous growl and elbowed him hard in the stomach. The vampire released him and stumbled back more out of shock than pain. Yugi took advantage of the momentary moment and leapt down the old stairs, sliding down the banister with the vampire not far behind him. He slid off into another alcove, held his breath and pressed deeper into the wall when he spotted the vampire sliding past and down to the first floor. Yugi quickly slipped through the drapes and into another hallway, the house deceptively bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside and took another set of stairs, spilling out in his haste onto the checkered patterned floor of the ballroom.

Yugi scrambled to his feet and gasped as the room, as if by magic, came to life around him. The curtains pulled open letting the cloud strewn sunlight spilling in through the walls. Music blasted in an orchestra of strange, tumultuous tunes. Laughter and gossip of phantom figures only added to the cacophony and then bright figures appeared like colorful ghosts dancing all around him in spirling waltzes. Yugi remembered it, heard it, smelt it, felt it. Felt another’s calloused hands around his waist and spun him and he found his body moving subconsciously to the actions. Found himself pressed against the immovable wall of a strong chest, felt the warmth of it against his cheek. Felt the ghost of warm, wet lips on his hair and his cheek and his chest, inhaled the aroma of exotic spices and tasted the phantoms of honey and cayenne. 

Bombarded by the sensations, Yugi shook his head, fisted his temples and tried desperately to push them away--these ghosts that haunted his waking hours and refused to let him rest. These dreams that should not be real, should not have existed. Blinded by grief and terror he ran and smacked right into the unmovable wall of the vampire’s chest.

Before Yugi could scream, the smirking vampire wrapped his arm around Yugi’s waist and imprisoned his hand in his, lacing their fingers together. Imprisoned, Yugi put up no resistance as he was pulled into the steps of a waltz. The vampire’s smirk was wild and waiting, but his eyes were dimmed, duleld as if sad or concerned. 

“Remember how much we used to love the Masquerades? You could wear whatever you wanted because no one recognized you behind a mask. We could disappear for hours right under your father’s nose?” His voice hugged Yugi’s ears like dark velvet, intimate and carnal.

Yugi shivered: fear and arousal fighting for control of his thundering heart. 

They pulled apart and Yugi found himself surprisingly graceful for someone who often tripped over his own feet. He flourished under the vampire’s patient hands and swift steps. Marik smiled, endearing and indulgent. “Just like the first time,” Marik cooed, sweetly, holding him in such a way that allowed Yugi to right himself and find his footing. 

When they spun back together he found himself flush against the other’s chest and turned bright red as their eyes locked, a nervous smile curling at his lips. This seemed to please the vampire, who spun them into a more wide and elaborate dance. Yugi felt like a ragdoll spinning in the other’s grip and tried to push the other away but his hands were too strong. 

As if sensing Yugi’s discomfort, the other slowed, and Yugi found himself able to once more keep pace. On the next dip, Yugi caught a flash and spotted the white light leaking through the gap in the curtain. The vampire seemed oblivious of this, as he held out his hand for Yugi to take. A plan formulating in Yugi’s head, he narrowed his eyes and switched to a more brawny air, and pressed himself up against the vampire, fingers danced up his chest and a sultry smile quirked at the corners of his lips.

Marik pulled away surprised, but Yugi, merley stepped back, teasingly, a coquettish wink in his eyes. He leaned back lazily near one window, then back peddled up to the dais and that hideous throne. Marik’s eyes glittered with relief and something that looked like joy, before his smile curled hungrily and he pounced like a predator, unlatching his cape, pulling off his gloves, and even unbuttoning his vest as he approached Yugi.

Yugi’s face heated as the other stripped, grateful he kept on his pants, but as he peeled away his dress shirt, revealing the smooth, chiseled grooves and valleys of his chest, Yugi almost abandoned the plan completely, but steeled himself with thoughts of escape. The curtain tassel hung tantalizingly near the throne. He was so close.

Suddenly, Marik swooped forward and scooped him up like a bride, set him upon the seat of the throne, his eyes flashed with a mixture of emotions ranging from hunger, humility, grief, gratitude, love, longing, remembrance, regret and so many others Yugi could not name them all. And then those hands and lips were upon him. Warm lips found his neck and collar at the same time than hand slid up his thigh, bunching Yugi’s skirts around his waist. The tongue and touches sending delicate little shivers all along his skin and suddenly he was hyperventilating under the touch. A hard heavy hand slid along his thigh, cupped his bottom, squeezed. Yugi swallowed a shriek as the other untied the lacings of his bodice. 

Reaching desperately for the tassel, he shivered under the touches, but not with disgust. His treacherous body abandoning all logic, as the man lips pressed against his skin in a possessive kiss, seducing him inch by aching inch. His back arched as those hands kneaded his bottom making him writhe and groan, his thighs quaking and his knees trembling, the heels of his boots digging into the brass, desperate with desire. 

Finally his hands enclosed around the curtain rod just as Marik’s lips pressed to his in a hot, hungry kiss.

That single kiss changed everything.

**VI**

_Make the Girl in black your bride_

_—The Night, Aurelio Voltaire_

Marik felt Yugi grow complaint under the kiss, his hands falling around his shoulders and pulling him closer. Obligating, he deepened their kiss becoming drunk on the magnificently familiar taste of hazelnut and chocolate and strawberries and blood. He felt Yugi arch against him, pressing deeper against the grooves of his chest, slamming their hips together, Yugi’s tongue darting into his mouth.

By God, he even kissed the same. When he pulled away, Yugi looked up at him, his eyes huge and dark with desire, his face flushed with longing. 

_Yes_ , Marik’s undead heart thundered with glee. Yes, there was no mistaking this taste, this face. 

“You remember?” he asked, breathless and begging. “Don’t you?” A desperate, pleading edge crept into his voice. 

Yugi nodded because he did remember. He remembered those lips, this touch, the taste of honey and cayenne and foreign spices.

“I…” he stuttered tears choking his voice. “I do...but I don’t...I remember this place...I remember us...but I don’t...Oh God what am I?” He shivered, fat tears streaming down his cheeks.

Marik kissed them away and pulled him into his strong arms, “Shh...It’s alright, my love. I’ve got you.” he shushed, the warmth of his embrace soothing him. Yugi pulled away and looked into his eyes, cupped his warm cheek, that delicious mocha skin he adored so much warm under his touch. “I’m remembering, but there’s still so much I’ve forgotten, but I...I remember you, Marik. I remember who we were...but, how is this possible? How can I feel this way when I’ve never met you? Oh, God, who am I?”

Marik scooped him up again, held him tight before he could cry. Caught off guard by the fierceness of that embrace, Yugi allowed himself to be held, to be comforted. “Your body has not met me yet, your mind may not fully remember, but your soul does. And your heart does.” Marik assured him. “It doesn’t matter who you were or who you are now. You are still Yugi. You are still the wild, stubborn, spunky, impish, spirited, kind, wonderful boy that I love very much.”

Marik kissed him again, but this time it was a chaste and gentle kiss to his nose. Yugi giggled under the ticklish treatment, a bright smile Marik had not seen in centuries bloomed across Yugi’s sweet, laughing face. 

“There it is,” Marik’s eyes bulged with excitement and adoration. “That’s the smile. God, I have missed it…”

“Marik,” Yugi whispered the name, it rolled off his tongue with so much love and lust, that the vampire shivered. “I remember, but I need to remember more.” Yugi cupped his face, looked deep into his eyes, a coquettish smile curling across his face, his lust darkened eyes half lidded with desire and he curled his fingers under the man’s chin, a silent command. “Help me remember more.”

Marik’s eyes widened. “Are you sure? I admit, I was hoping my advances would stirr something, but I never intended to do more without your permission.”

“You have it, Marik,” Yugi purred, his voice a sultry rasp. “I trust you, Marik.” He pressed their lips together in a hungry kiss, and Marik was lost. Yugi arms locked around his neck and his hands found those slender hips and pulled Yugi flush against him, one arm snaked around his waist cupping his back, the other spread his thighs and he pushed himself between them.

He slammed Yugi back against the throne, drawing a gasp from his beloved and attacked his now exposed collar and chest with kisses and bites, hiked Yugi’s thigh against his hip, his leg wrapping around his hips. Yugi gasped and moaned, laced his fingers into his hair and tugged. His name exploding out of his mouth in loud, breathy, wanton gasps. His pride and arousal stirred by the pain and the evidence of his love’s pleasure, Marik growled roaming freely with his teeth and enticing delicious little moans from Yugi. His fingers spidered up the leather of Yugi’s boots, tiptoed across the soft skin of his thighs, stroked the junction between hip and thigh, avoided the one place he longed to be touched the most.

“Marik,” Yugi groaned, loosening his grip so he could grip the armrests, a pleading edge creeping into his voice. “Please...don’t tease…”

Marik rose with a smirk, set the boy down on the seat and slipped between his parted thighs with rough, rogue touches that made Yugi shiver with delight. Fingers slipping between his thighs wrapping around the thin strands of his underwear. The other pulled a vial from his pocket and upcapped it. “As you wish,” he dropped to his knees, ripped them away and thrust his fingers inside.

Yugi screamed in rapturous delight. The burn of his tight smoldering heat crashed against the coolness of those oil slick fingers. The ring of his entrance bruised under the force of the entrance, but Yugi did not mind. His body relaxed under the onslaught of pain and pleasure as his lover, probed and pridded, stretched and scissored, curled and thrust, making Yugi arch and quake and quiver. His heels dug into the grounds, but his thighs quivered, his nails scrapped against the stone but his back arched and lunged uncontrollably: only Marik’s hard, heavy hand kept him still. Admiring Yugi in such a writhing, wanton state, Marik rose and stared into those lust-clouded eyes, those flushed cheeks, those soft lips parted in moans of pleasure, watched the whole thing scrunch up with absolute delight, as he thrust his fingers up hard and Yugi screamed. Swallowed it with a kiss, and continued to probe and thrust and pound until he found the one place where Yugi could never deny him.

Yugi screamed into their kiss and then suddenly Marik pulled away, lips and fingers leaving him and Yugi mewled, desperate and empty. Marik kissed him again, a present and a promise as he undid his pants and pulled his arousal free. Yugi moaned into the gentleness of it, his only warning before Marik lifted him up and entered him in a slow, single thrust. Scorching heat engulfed his arousal and he growled at the magnificent feel of Yugi’s velvety warmth enveloping him, his claws sinking into hips and thighs as he moved. Yugi seized him by the shoulders, his back curled in a perfect arch as he was filled completely. Breath exploded from his chest in hard, heavy pants.

Their eyes met, luminous and lusty. Locked as they moved against each other Yugi rolled his hips, all quivering thighs and trembling hips, lifted his legs and braced his feet on the seat, giving him more control of the angel. Marik wrapped an arm around his waist and lifted him in time with his next thrusts: long, languid and torturously slow, gradually building strength and speed, until he was slamming into his lover and Yugi was a writhing, wanton mess beneath him. They thrust against each other, erratic and wild and uncontrollable.

Suddenly white exploded behind Yugi’s eyes and his next scream was a breathless gasp. Marik smirked, arched his hips and reangled his next thrust, pounding wildly into that one place Yugi could never deny him--Yugi’s screamed, wrapped his legs around Marik’s waist and arched up his hips, desperate to meet the other’s thrusts and eager to keep the distance between them as minimal as possible. Marik braced himself against the throne and lifted Yugi higher, altering their angle, and driving deeper into his little lover the way he knew he liked. 

Yugi screamed and thrashed wildly, his thighs squeezing Marik’s hips tightly, his hands sinking into Marik’s shoulder and raking down his back. Stirred by the pain, Marik increased his speed, feeling his thickness hardening inside Yugi, making him moan. 

Feeling his blood boiling over and the coil in his stomach growing tight and taunt, Yugi had been reduced to a mewling, moaning mess, sweat beading his brow and his mind a haze of pleasure. He tried to speak, to warn his love, but his voice was lost in breathless moans. Marik swooped in, capturing Yugi’s lips in a kiss, pinned him against the back of the chair, pounded into him just as their lips met. Overwhelmed but it all, Yugi felt the coil snap and he screamed his lover’s name, the kiss broken by it. His tightness clamping down on that hot, heavy thickness inside him was all Marik took and his pleasure exploded with a loud, beastial growl of Yugi’s name. 

The boy shuddered as wave after wave of pleasure flooded inside of him branding him with liquid heat and marking him as the vampire’s own. Marik and Yugi collapsed against each other, falling back against the chair, spent and satisfied.

And just like that Yugi’s memories came flooding back: memories of Marik stealing into his room, determined to kill him and claim vengeance for the family his father had stolen. How Yugi’s fearlessness and empathic understanding revealed within Marik that it was Yugi’s heart and not his life he wanted. The love that had bloomed quickly and secretary between them, such a love unheard and unspoken among the Victorian culture, but in the seclusion of this place allowed them to express their love freely, right under his Father’s nose. How many nights had Yugi spent curled up in Marik’s arms, the two of them making love and relaxing in the sparsely decorated room of Yugi’s chambers. How many times had they played games of chase and hide and seek among the many rooms and corridors. How many times had Yugi found himself free to indulge in his love of beautiful dresses and Yami his flamboyant coats and heeled boots, while Marik gushed about how cute he looked. How many times had they made love on his father’s gaudy throne in a direct defiance against him?

Until…

“He found out about us didn’t he?” Yugi asked, running his fingers through the soft, gold mane. 

Marik didn’t answer, just pressed his chin against Yugi’s head, stroking his hair. “I don’t remember much of that night but I remember screaming and fighting. He found out about us, about you and me about Yami and...then just...darkness. What happened?” 

“I...I don’t know..” Marik confessed, stroking Yugi’s cheek, his heart twisted with anguish. “The upstairs study, it was on fire. By the time we got there, you were both dead.” Tears pricked his eyes, and he pulled Yugi tighter into his arms, as if he were a phantom who would vanish if he let go. “I waited for you for two hundred years. I was afraid you’d never come.”

“It was this place…” Yugi admitted, joyful tears coming to his eyes and his lips curled into a smile as he leaned into the familiar comfort of Marik’s arms. “It was mother’s in her past life and in this one...I knew as soon as I saw it it felt familiar, felt like home. Now, I know why.” He looked into Marik’s eyes joy and bliss glittering like rhinestones on his eyes. “It’s because you were here.”

He kissed him again, and Marik returned it with just as much passion. Unlike their earlier kisses which were of hunger and heat, this was soft and warm, full of adoration and love. Yugi gently pushed his lover back against the chair, only then realizing they were still joined from their lovemaking, his arousal growing thick and heavy inside of him. Yugi moaned into this kiss. they broke apart and looked down. Understanding turned to smiles and Marik did not resist as Yugi pushed him back, slipped his spread thighs on either side of his hips and slowly, achingly started to ride his lover. 

Still sensitive from their previous love-making, Yugi shuddered at the sensation of his lovers' thick, heavy heat scraping against him, the thickness of it inside him, the slow, langid build of molten heat and the feel of his lover’s chest beneath his hands: hills and valleys of rough, raw flesh.

From this position, Yugi could see every angle of his face: every curve and tug of his lips, every spark of pleasure and bulge of his eyes, what he liked and what he didn’t. He used this as a map and rolled his hips, increasing speed when Marik groaned, and growled, slowing when his fingers twitched and he growled with impatience, fangs bared. Yugi pinned his hands, and he growled in protest, but Yugi only flashed a sultry smile and increased his speed. 

Smirking, Marik arched his hips at the same time, driving himself deeper inside of him and Yugi gasped, breathless as his entire body shuddered with pleasure. Marik repeated the action, over and over until Yugi all but collapsed in his arms. Marik caught him easily, steading him and they rode against the other, reading the other’s pleasure, the heat coiled in their bellies until the pleasure and the pressure became too much and they came together with a loud moan of the other’s names. 

With some maneuvering, Yugi managed to free himself from Marik and the both of them shuddered at the loss of the other’s warmth. When they were finished, Yugi relaxed in Marik’s arms, the other sprawled out over the chair, his legs propped up on the armrest. Yugi hummed, contently: Marik’s long gentle fingers stroked his hair, the feeling comforting and reminded him of home.

 _Home_. 

Yes, he was _home_.

 _Home_ , with Marik, in this house, and Yami..

Yugi shot up, “Yami!”

Marik jumped, blinked, arched a brow. “Um, your brother’s name isn’t exactly something you scream after I make love to you.”

“What! Oh! No!” Yugi blushed and rubbed the back of his neck, with a nervous chuckle. “I…kinda… sorta… didn’t tell him where I was or where I was going, and it’s morning.” A worried, nervous smile.

Marik blanched. “Wait...Yami’s back…” He smacked his forehead. “Of course, he is, damnit, I gotta deal with him again?”

Yugi laughed. “Well..”

A huge crash echoed throughout the house followed by a loud scream of a familiar name. The two boys shot up, blanched as the ball room doors suddenly swung open revealing the disheveled, out of breath face of Yugi’s older brother.

He deflated with relief when he saw Yugi was alright. Then noticed where Yugi was, or rather _whose_ lap he was in. Or rather sprawled over. Half dressed, skirts bunched up around his hips, bodice undone, positioned in a _very_ telling way.

The two boys sat frozen as Yami scrutinized them. His worry evaporating into disgruntlement, his left brow twitching angrily. With a groan he pinched the bridge between his nose: his shoulder taunt, his hands fists, his voice low and dangerous with barely controlled rage.

“Yugi…” he said in a tone he only ever used when he was very, very, _very_ angry. 

Yugi gulped, loudly. 

Marik didn’t move. 

He _knew_ that look.

“ _Please_ , tell me you _did not_ _sneak_ out in the _middle_ of the night to get _laid_ with a stranger.” He retorted, dangerously sweet.

“Hum…” Yugi stuttered. “Technically, he’s not a stranger.”

Before Yami could explode, someone else beat him to it. “What the bloody _fuck_ is going on down there!”

An extremely loud, extremely disgruntled roar echoing from upstairs. 

“Oh…” Marik’s eyes bulged, remembering exactly who was asleep upstairs. “Shit.” 

Who was now stomping, very loudly down stairs, cursing, and grumbling. “God fucking damnit! Ishizu said two hundred and twenty three years, three weeks and four days until they get back. ” The second floor balcony doors burst open with a single sharp kick. 

“So… which one of you _fucking_ idiots thought it would be a _good_ idea to wake up _two_ ” A furious winter storm of a vampire bulldozed onto the balcony and slammed his hand down on the banister, his wild wolfish mane of white hair frazzled angrily all about him, the bangs reared up like frazzles bat wing. “ _Whole fucking days earl_ —“

Russet eyes expanded, anger evaporated from his face, transformed into surprise. His gaze locked on Yami’s. “Ly…”

The boy looked up at him, then glared with the same intense scarlet eyes he had the first time they met two hundred years ago. 

“Atemu?”


	2. Almost Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened that night Marik snuck into Yugi's room, desperate and determined to avenge the family and the life that was stolen from him? How did Yugi convinced him that it was love not vengeance that would heal his scars?   
> This is that story...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically wrote this with no plan...I knew what i wanted to do and how it was suppose to go but I basically jumped right into it and let Marik and Yugi flow on their own, A few things were changed, sticking to the original outline and I honestly debated if i was gonna do the lemons or not but in the end, the chemistry between these two characters just wrote itself...
> 
> In addition to the title song this one was very heavily inspired by my Dark/Libra playlist, so I wanted to add that here. just to give it the chapter a little more depth if anyone is interested.  
> Song: Almost Human-Voltaire  
> Playlist: Monster-Imagine Dragons (my souls song lately)  
> Demons-Imagine Dragona  
> Monster-Skillet  
> The Monster-Eminem and Rihanna (which perfectly describes me)  
> My Demons-Starset  
> Flares-The Script  
> Let Me Love You-Ne-Yo (this song literally describes Dark and Libra to a T)
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of genocide, violence, pyrophobia, PTSD, threats of violence and murder and somewhat dubious consent depending on how you look at it but it IS consensual, and mentions of period typical homophobia.

**PART II**

**Almost Human**

**I**

_ What did I ever do to you _

_ That you should cast me from grace _

_ Though I love to rule in Hell _

_ How I miss the taste of Heaven _

_ It’s cool and soft embrace _

_ —Almost Human,  _ Aurelio Voltaire

He landed with all the grace and silence of an assassin come to do murder. His prey slept alone in the bed and the room was empty and absent of guards or servants: it was almost comical how easy it all was. Behind him, the storm burst through the window with a rage that reflected his own bloodlust. Yet even then his query did not stir.

He chuckled, resisted the urge to laugh and snapped his fingers. The windows slammed shut, silent as shadows, and the howling wind and rage roaring thunder vanished: silencing the world in an instant. He took careful, sure-footed steps across the lush carpet and cast a quick glance around the large room. It was small for a house of this size and sparsely furnished, odd for the child of a man known for his expensive taste and wasteful spending. If anything this room looked...humble, homey. There was an old armchair in the corner beneath a gas-lamp besides a bookcase, the volumes worn and well-loved. A small night table was piled with heavy volumes and a stack of papers and a writer's pen. The large windows took up nearly the whole wall overlooking the moors and the rest of the other three were done in simple blue and gold wallpaper. There were no oversized portraits of the room’s owner or rare and expensive art pieces. The pictures he did see were small portraits of a lovely woman, an old man, a young man and a small boy. Black and white photos of the four in various events and states of happiness crowded one of the bureaus: sweet, blissful images ripe with innocence and youth and a happy childhood he had never known past the age of ten.

He wanted to swipe them away in rage but resisted, less he woke his prey and all this be in vain. In the back of his mind, a small observant self noticed the lack of the lord in any of them, not even in family portraits. Shutting off this observation, he spun back to the bed. It was a dream: an ivory concoction of dusty golds and pale blues loaded with pillows and gossamer curtains like something a sleeping beauty might have been laid in for her eternal rest. A dark part of him imagined them splattered with red, drenched and reeking of copper.

The thought brought to life images of fire and screaming: houses burning down, hungry demons of flame devouring all with their fierce, red teeth and monstrous maws, curtains of black smoke rising like dead phantoms choking breath from lung, and the sound of metal slicing flesh, of men and women screaming and bodies collapsing to the ground. The stench of smoke and coppery blood and burning flesh and charred meat leaving nothing in the wake of its murder but ashes and dust. Bone dust. The dust of his parents, his aunt, his uncle, his family, his coven, his home.

The memory of phantom pain burning away the flesh of his back, the pain, so great, so intense, like a demon’s needle like talons scraping, clawing and hacking at his back over and over again until all he felt was pain. Until the pain was so intense that he felt he must die, but the sweet blissful darkness of death would not come. As if peace itself had been ripped away from him. It awakened within him a rage and a fury and an anguish so intense, his lavender eyes blazed red with hate and he hesitated no longer.

He leapt into the air, hovered for just a moment as he settled himself upon the bed, landed on either side of his slumbering prey, a boy—the Lord of this house’s youngest son, the child of the man who murdered his family. He landed soft as a phantom, his knees sinking into the mattress on either side of the boy’s slender hips pinning them there. For the briefest moment he felt those slim hips against his flesh, felt the quivering softness of his thighs against the curve of his calf and for the briefest flash of an instant, his anger quieted.

And then he saw the boy’s face. He was simply lovely. Innocent in sleep, his face reflected nothing less than a sleeping child who had never known suffering or pain, and yet the tilt of his pert mouth where soft, flower petal lips morphed into a frown and the tiny creases of stress at his bow, barely noticeable if one did not look, betrayed the innocent vestige. His skin felt soft as lilies beneath his touch and its tone matched their pinkish white color. Frosty by the moonlight, it was a striking contrast to Marik’s own mocha brown skin that spoke of an ancestry belonging to desert nomads. The round face sported plump, full cheeks and a pointed chin that tapered to a heart and though closed, the big round eyes and lush lashes spoke of an angelic almost effeminate beauty. A crown of raven black spikes fanned like wings atop his head crowned with a forelock of silken gold like scattered sunbeams and highlights of purple and magenta boasted the rainbow darkness of sterling’s feathers. He looked…nothing less than lovely, like an angel made of flesh.

For a precious perpetual moment, Marik’s undead heart stopped, stumbled and then began to beat, a silent, hopeful whisper in his chest assuring him that hope was not yet lost. He had seen the boy before, of course he had! He and Bakura had stalked the two boys for weeks: monitoring their habits and observing their movements, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, for the absence of the Lord’s presence in order to strike and answer treachery in kind, but the moments were rare and fleeting. The man seemed to dominate the two boy’s lives, flooding the room with his presence and whose roving eye watched his two sons like a hawk in the presence of others and yet was strangely absent from their home life. To the best of their knowledge, he spent as much time as possible in the homes of like-minded friends and business associates, or in the office he occupied in the city, very rarely returning to the family homestead on the moors that his sons loved. Whatever control he seemed to exert over the boys, the manor was the one in which neither youth would budge.

The choice presented the ideal opportunity for the two vampires with bellies for blood and rages that would only be sated by justice.

And yet, as Marik stared down at this boy, this beautiful angel he’d studied from a far, took in every detail of his face and loveliness, came the sudden sick realization that he had come to do murder. His gut twisted with a vicious shock of horror that he quickly, forcefully, shook away. 

_ No! _ He scolded himself!  _ NO! _

He could not,  _ would _ not humanize him. Would not view him as anything other than what he was: the boy whose family, whose father, had slaughtered his. The boy who  _ lived _ while his family was  _ dead _ .

How dare he. How dare he sleep peacefully, carelessly, innocently, while his family lay dead!

Steeling himself with that hatred, Marik grabbed the boy by the neck, enticing a terrified gasp from him. his hands rose to strike out at his assailant, but Marik was quicker and seied both slim wrists in his stronger, larger hands and pinned them above the boy’s head, eyes burning read and his fangs springing free as eager for vengeance as he was and elongated in his jaw, ready to bite and snap the brat’s neck and tear out his jugular.

And then those eyes snapped open.

**II**

_ I still remember your light _

_ And it was streaming down _

_ And burning out my eyes _

_ —Almost Human,  _ Aurelio Voltaire

They stunned him with their color and expression. They were neither blue nor purple but some majestic color in between, the deepest most mysterious shade of violet, like moonlit pools or the evening sky just before moonrise. Big and wide, they did nothing to hide their expressiveness and Marik found himself lost in the deepness of their dark, penetrating depths. But what mesmerized him most of all was not their color but the range of emotions visible between them: bewildered surprise, startled shock, survivalist calm, stunned mystification, curious concern. No, it was the emotion they didn’t show: fear. Those beautiful violet eyes as bright and shimmering and expressive as polished amethyst stared up at him with a fearless, breathless, calm.

It surprised Marik enough to stop.

“You…you’re…” the boy spoke sounding uncertain and…relieved? A mix of both most likely. He did not struggle against the bonds of Marik’s hands, did not thrash and buck in terror, did not beg and scream and cry and plead for his life like a pathetically weak little coward, or fight with a survivalist desire for even a second more of life. He remained just as he spoke: calm, clear and uncertain, a slight tremor in his hands and hips.

“Beautiful.” The word rolled off those delicate lips with such earnest passion and raw desire that Marik almost whirled back in utter shock.

He was well aware of the consequences of his exotic appearance: how his sharp leonine features and the paleness of his sandy blond hair made him appear both strangely elegant and untamedly dangerous in the eyes others. How the brand of his dark skin perpetually marked him as an outcast and a stranger in this arrogant, aristocratic world of Europe. There had been plenty who’d seen desire in his exotic beauty, in his dark strength and quiet resolve and sought pleasure in his bed but not his personality. None of them had ever called him beautiful. None of them ever looked at him with such adoration as this boy, this angel, compared to himself did.

That small spark of hope enraged him and Marik shot forward, once more seizing the boy by the grip of his throat, growled like a vicious beast and dragged him up to meet the fire and the fury and the hatred and the hunger burning in the twilight flames of his lavender eyes. “What is the matter with you!” He raged, furious fire enraging his voice with a high, raspy shriek.

The boy allowed him without even a flinch. His eyes dark and half-lidded with arousal. “Your eyes are like lilacs,” he whispered and that sweet, low melodious rasp was nearly Marik’s undoing. The softness of the words, so rich and velvety and delicate and light and airy that if ever Marik could imagine an angel’s voice, this would be it. “Lilacs are my favorite flower.”

Enraged, Marik screamed and released the boy’s wrists and throat, grabbed him by the arms and slammed him back against the headboard with such force it knocked the air from the boy’s lungs. Marik watched him deflate into silence with no small amount of satisfaction. “Do you not know why I am here? Why I’ve come? Are you so naïve?” he mocked, his voice thick and snaked with derision desperate to destroy the effect the boy had upon him by destroying the boy himself.

To his utter shock however he found only dark, defiant amethyst eyes staring back at him and not the submissive purple he had expected. “Have you come to kill me?” the boy asked, but there was nothing of a question in his words.

“YES!” Marik shrieked, furious not by the word themselves but the boy’s reaction. ‘”Why are you not scared? Why are you not sobbing and begging for your life? How dare you deny me my vengeance by being complicit!” He threw the boy back against the bed and Yugi sank into the comforters but was offered no reprise as the vampire snatched him by the wrists and pinned them level with his head, pinned his legs and hips in place with his lower half and curled over him so close there was no way to ignore him. Their faces mere inches apart, both the boy himself and Marik could make out every detail of the other’s expressions, and knew there was no mistaking the madness twisting his fanged smile, nor the rage burning his eyes bright as candles.

And yet the boy’s face only fell, frowned as if hurt. 

Damn him! The boy had no right to feel anything other than fear and retributional shame! Marik wanted more of that hurt more of that pain to make up for his own: for the screaming he still heard in his nightmares, for the stench of copper and smoke and burning flesh that still haunted his nostrils and rose like bile to stop. Hurt for the pain he’s felt for years, for the phantom scars still burning into his back, for the pain and suffering his father had caused and had caused him.

And yet those eyes were alight with curiosity instead of cowardice.

“Why?” came the simple, honest question.

“What?” Marik snapped, his mind frozen by the shock of the word.

“Why do you want to kill me?”

**III**

_ What did I ever do to you _

_ That you should treat me this way? _

_ Is it really such a crime _

_ For an angel to speak his mind? _

_ Anytime I’ll try to shed some Light _

_ —Almost Human,  _ Aurelio Voltaire

Marik exploded. “Why!” 

He sank his nails into the boy’s wrists, making him wince, but blinded by madness and rage and grief Marik did not notice as he bore down upon the boy with so many hateful words and anguished gasps it was impossible to stop. The damn of enraged grief exploded out of him and there was nothing left to do but ride the waves, “Why! I will tell you why! I want you dead because your family killed mine! You Father killed mine! My family and I lived in a village in the deserts across the sea far away from this disgustingly arrogant Europe with its pompous pride and mock righteousness. He, like the rest of the invaders wanted gold, or spices or resources, but my family stayed away from all that, because we were not like others. We are vampires. Yes, you stupid, child, for I see the denial in your little gasp, we were a very rare breed from the deserts of Egypt were like most desert kin we slept beneath the earth by day and roamed the world at night. Our village was small but plentiful and wealthy, we were trained as hunters and thieves but we were also kind and loyal, then one day your father came and decided he liked our land and because his skin was white, and ours wasn’t and because he was from Europe and we were little more than desert rats, and because he wanted it and didn’t think us even worthy of asking, decided he would take it. When we refused, he came back with an army but we decimated them in the night, for no one can stop a hunter born to the dark. That should’ve been the end of it, but he used this to rouse pity from others and hired mercenaries and spies to learn our habits and plans, and when he learned our secret and our weakness to the strength of the desert’s sunlight, he had them all come at dawn and set our entire village ablaze! Every single man, woman and child who was not set on fire escaped into a trap where their swords were waiting. The only reason I escaped is because my mother told my older brother to take my sister and I and run to our leader’s house, his son is my best friend and they sheltered us there, but the soldiers followed us and while the Nomach and his Lady fought, the princess hid us in the caves and sacrificed herself, so they’d think we all died! We barely escaped! Well…” The horror he saw on the boy’s face was gratifying, and Marik’s smirk twisted with cruelty and hate. “That’s not a true statement, we didn’t necessarily escape. Do you need proof? Certainty that your dear feather is not a monster? Well here!”

The boy sat petrified and wide-eyed in his shock, and Marik, overcome with the grief of his own victory, seized the moment to release him. Quickly he unclasped his cape, stripped his vest and finally his dress shirt, his smirk curling at the corners as the boy watched, memorized by horror and terror and a dark realization.

But Marik did not touch him, instead he turned around and exposed his back, hearing only the swallowed screams and the telling sound of hands clasping over one’s mouth as Marik exposed him to the cruel scars that raked across his back: the remains of the flaming demons/ attempt to destroy him before Bakura saved his life.

“This is why I want you dead, Ujalah Van Darkholm,” he spat the words over his shoulder like they were a sacred prayer. His voice rough, anguished; his eyes wet with unshed tears as he whirled around and faced him. Stared into those amethyst eyes that shined more than usual. Shined wetly, he realized, wet with unshed tears. 

“Because your father killed my family. Because you are alive while they are dead. Why should he live and have his family while my siblings and I are alone?” The tears came freely now, big wet drops spilling from Marik’s eyes as all his grief poured out of him. “It’s not enough to kill him, he doesn’t deserve a quick death and the sweet bliss of peace, no, he deserves to  _ know _ . To suffer. To continue to live this life without his family and to feel that pain every day. To know that life without your loved ones is far worse than any pain death might bring.”

He stared into the boy’s eyes, never expecting what happened next.

The boy threw his arms around Marik’s chest and burst into tears. The tiny body wracked with sobs as he wept uncontrollably for the man he held. Marik could do nothing but sit there, sit and feel like the weight of the world suddenly evaporated from his shoulders. He let the boy cry the anguished sobs, he, himself had run out of long ago, and yet still felt the pain.

“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered in a voice choked with tears. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” The boy pulled away, his face ashen and soaked with tears, those magnificent violet eyes heartbroken and that single sight caused Marik more distress than anything else.

“If I thought it would help, I would gladly give you my life if I thought it would ease your pain…” he paused and there was no denying the earnestness in that declaration. The boy’s hands fisted. “But it won’t, because my father is not like you. You love your family, and my father…he never loved his.” The boy’s angelic voice twisted with bitter rage, so much so that Marik was surprised by the depth of such hatred, such indignation.

“You…believe us?” Marik choked on a gasp.

The boy laughed, a harsh bitter bark of sound. “You think I do not know what that man is capable of?” The tone showed he did not expect an answer, and the boy answered too quickly for Marik to give one. “He is my Father,  _ our _ Father, my brother’s and mine. The man who blackmailed our grandfather to wed his daughter so he could marry into wealth and aristocracy and then abandoned her once the documents were signed and the marriage bed was still warm. The man who hates my brother and I because our mother loved us, and we hate him because he never loved her. Our father who tried for years to force us to do his bidding because mother and grandpa made us the sole inheritors of their funds and estates, and bribed the Magisters to remain our guardian until Temmy turns twenty-one. Who dictates every word we speak, every ball we attend, every action we say in public so we will not embarrass him and does nothing but insult us when we are alone, Believe me when I say, I know better than anyone how cruel he is.”

The boy deflated as if exhausted by his own outburst. He brushed an arm across his face and held it there, shaking. “My death would cause that man no grief. In truth, he would be grateful if someone came and rid him of his ‘weak, worthless, effeminate son who exists only to embarrass him’,” Yugi spat.

Marik sat back then, stunned as the boy looked at him, wide eyes dark with an emotion he knew only too well “You are not the only one his selfishness and greed has suffered.”

Marik reeled back as if he'd been scorched, shook his head and steeled himself. “It is not the same!” he snapped clinging desperately to the last tendrils of rage. He needed his rage for without it there was nothing left, but pain…even as the phantom pain in his back and heart that had burdened him for years felt less and less a physical thing.

“No,” Yugi agreed with a sigh, his hands falling limply in his lap. “No, it isn’t. You’re right.”

Marik growled at him, a howling, mangled sound like a wounded animal, afraid and confused and had nothing left but savagery to keep it from surrendering.

“I’m sorry…” the boy said again, and Marik felt fingers weaving through his hair. “I’m sorry I cannot do more to take away your pain.”

Marik shot up then captured the angel and pinned him on top of the comforter, stared down into eyes a mixture of surprise and fearful excitement, and something that was akin to arousal. Marik leered over him again with all the grace and wildness of a predatory cat, but it was not with malice that he spoke. “It is not my pain, you’ve taken.”

He only had to move an inch or two before his lips enveloped over the boy’s.

**IV**

_ I'm just like you _

_ Better than He _

_ To Hell with they _

_ I'm almost me _

_ I'm nearly human _

_ Pity me _

_ I'm almost a human being _

_ —Almost Human,  _ Aurelio Voltaire

They parted with a small little gasp and then relaxed with a moan, allowing Marik to sample them thoroughly. He tasted chocolate and hazelnuts and strawberries and the rich, tangy flavor of spiced meat. Marik devoured it all until he was drunk on the taste, the boy’s tongue rising to meet his and briefly Marik wondered what he must taste to the angel.

They parted with a loud, breathy gasp that left them both panting. Their eyes met again blazing with arousal and the secret language that only lovers understood. Yugi’s shadowed eyes became half-lidded and he nodded, giving his consent and then whispered. “Yugi.”

Marik hummed only slightly confused so he elaborated. 

“My name is Yugi.”

Marik needed nothing else. He captured the boy’s lips again, devouring his breath in a kiss, and squeezed the pinioned wrists, earning a delicious gasp from the boy beneath him and an encouraging buck of his hips. 

Releasing one wrist, Marik clawed at the night gown he wore, and tore it open with a single sharp tug, broke the kiss and devoured Yugi’s neck and collar, enticing delicious little squeaks and moans from him. The boy writhing and wriggling under the rough treatment: all shivering hips and quaking thighs that spread wide like wings and enclosed around his hips as Marik greedily explored every inch of the soft subtle flesh. The tender softness of his chest and the pert little buds of his breasts—Yugi seemed to like the way his fingers pinched and prodded and teased if the little mewls and squirms were any indication, the taunt smoothness of his belly as he ran his fingers down over the valley of his belly and tapped spidery fingers over the sensitive junction of his pelvis and thighs. 

He let go of Yugi’s other wrist to tear away the rest of the gown leaving the boy naked and exposed to him, displayed in all his magnificent glory like Marik’s own personal feast. His teeth and fangs explored freely, leaving tiny bites and lovemarks in their wake while his strong hands held his hips down, slid up and down the subtle flesh of his thighs, kneaded the plump, pleasant globes of his bottom.

All while Yugi writhed and bucked and moaned, wantonly beneath him. His hands squeezed Marik’s shoulders and fisted his hair, his hips buckled against their binds desperately urging him onward especially when Marik’s teeth and tongue began teasing his inner thighs, licking and sampling the flesh but avoiding the place where Yugi wished to be touched most.

His arousal hung heavy between them and Marik teased it with his fingers. Desperate and eager, and yet driven to the brink of madness with pleasure, Yugi forced himself to sit up, to steady himself on the man’s hips while his strong hands continued to grope and stroke. Force the shaking fingers of one hand to undo the lacings of the man’s pants while the other fished for something in his dresser drawer but the man’s skilled finger about his length made it impossible not to shiver, let alone focus. Finally, Yugi could stand it no longer and collapsed in his arms, tossing him the vial of oil.

Marik ceased his actions and looked at it with an arched brow.

Yugi grinned shamelessly. “You are not the first gentlemen I’ve had in my bed,” he confessed unabashedly: eyes shadowed, a coquettish glint to his smile. “But I suspect you will be the only one from now on.”

“Yes!” Marik growled, hungrily spilling the contents over his fingers and pulling the evidence of his own arousal free. It felt hot and heavy between them and Yugi swallowed, and licked his lips. Marik ceased him around the neck, eyes blazing with bold possessiveness. Yugi shivered in delight “I will be.” And he thrust his fingers inside.

Yugi screamed, back bending in a perfect arch as Marik skilled fingers thrusted and angled, stretched and prodded. He released the boy’s neck to snake an arm around his waist, pulling him flush against him and arching his fingers, thrusting them deeper. Yugi writhed deliciously under the penetration, grabbing his shoulders and struggling to wrap his legs around the man’s waist, his mouth open in a series of delighted moans and shrieks as those fingers pushed and prodded, stretching against the velvety tightness of his warmth. Yugi’s arms tightened around his shoulder and just when he thought he might die from the onslaught of pleasure, the fingers removed themselves.

Yugi barely has time to mourn their absence before he was once more pinned against the bed by his wrists, Marik loomed over him, eyes wild with delight, spreading Yugi’s thighs and burying himself completely with a single, solid thrust.

Heat and white light exploded behind Yugi’s eyes as pleasure fired his blood. The unexplainable feel of his own velvety heat wrapping so tightly about that wondrously thick arousal crashed against the burst of it stretching his tightness. The friction, so hot and wonderful that Yugi wanted, needed, craved more and he immediately bucked his hips, putting the man deeper inside him and encouraging to continue.

Marik growled, savagely and obeyed, thrusting wildly and rapidly into the boy beneath him, stimulated by the way those velvety walls brushed and scrapped and absolutely squeezed as if desperate to keep him there. Aroused by Yugi’s thighs tightening around his hips and his long legs kicking at his sides, and the arc of his spine, Mark let go of his wrists and wrapped his arm around Yugi’s waist, the other grabbed his hip and dragged it forward: the actions in combination with Yugi’s own movements put Marik deeper inside him, decreased their time apart and rapidly increased their speed, until both men where writhing against each other.

Until their stomaches tightened and the coil of pleasure grew taunt. Until their nails sank into the other’s flesh and pleasure exploded behind their eyes, and they came together in a single shattering climax that robbed Yugi of all his breath and drew from Marik a possessive scream of the other’s name just before he sank his teeth into the soft flesh of Yugi’s neck. Large, greedy gulps of blood that was nothing short of ambrosia: like chocolate and hazelnuts and strawberries and fresh spices. He drew away slowly, licked the wound clean, and saw Yugi visibly shudder at the sight of his own blood on his lover’s slips and the feel of his essence spilling inside him, burning him like a brand.

They collapsed together against the bed, swallowing the other’s breath and spirit in a kiss that was of both love and resilience. They stay conjoined, tightening their hold on the other as Marik’s essence branded Yugi with the evidence of his love and Yugi’s spilt across their stomachs, marking Marik as his own.

Fire boiled their blood, and their hands explored once more. Invigorated by the sudden sensitivity, the vampire once more began to entice the other to arousal with bites and licks and kisses and pets. Yugi returned the affection and pushed back, rolling Marik onto his back so Yugi was now seated in his lap. 

Marik growled at the new position a combination of pride and tested dominance. Yugi felt the evidence of his arousal—still conjoined from their last lovemaking—and moaned at the feel of him growing hard within him. Without warning, Yugi began to rock in the other’s hips, riding him as fiercely and recklessly as he rose his favorite stallion. Marik matched the fervent pace, rutting his hips up and slamming Yugi down to meet his erratic thrusts by once more grabbing his hips. Their eyes locked as they made love—blazing with a mixture of passion and desperation and wildness and savage acceptance.

They made love again and again that night and did not stop. Not when Atem, concerned at the commotion, burst into the room and found Yugi riding him, enraged until his own dark lover swooped him and caught him up in an embrace and left them in peace. Each time Marik sampled Yugi’s flesh and blood until the younger collapsed: spent and satisfied, drained and delirious with pleasure.

When dawn rose the next morning, Marik remained at Yugi’s side. And when dusk fell the next night, four lovers met, ready to face the consequences of their actions and planned their next step: the two families now allies in goals far more passionate than rage and vengeance: love and justice. 

And though he knew there was still much hardship ahead, and many more ghosts he still needed to put to rest, for the first time, with Yugi at his side, Marik looked to the light with new hope and felt, at long last, the beginnings of an end to his grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I initially had a huge debate with myself on how much exposition related to their past lives i was going to explore...and honestly whether or not I wanted to add it at all or leave it ambiguious but once I started exploring the characters' backgrounds, the emotional depth and trauma they enduried, they different levels of genre and parentla abuse (in Atem and Yugi's case) they endured and the attitudes of the time period, it offered me a whole level of characterization and development i was very eager to explore, and I have always loved writing flawed characters as they work through their grief and traumas.
> 
> This chapter was one of the results and I am personally very happy with how it came out...it was honestly quite cathartic for me, too, I won't lie.
> 
> I've struggled and suffered from my own experiences with grief and loss, and pain and toxic relationships and environments and while, I will admit they were no where near as bad as they could have been and the experiences of others, the struggled are all real, and they are consuming.  
>  I have faced my demons, embraced my monster and made peace with my inner darkness, but one thing I've learned is that you cannot do it alone. I was only able to get out of a toxic relationship because I had a VERY supportive friend, and was able to overcome my grief because of the loved ones how pushed me to get help. You need support and love and even if just one person believes in you, then you can overcome anything...  
> Never forget that you are loved.


	3. Anastasia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yami storms into the manor intending to rescue his wayward younger brother. He does not expect to find him the lap of a mocha-skinned vampire. Nor does he expect to meet a gorgeous white-haired vampire whose lustrous russet eyes and shark-toothed smile both ignite his temper and set his blood on fire--why does he seem so familiar? And why can Yami not remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally finished this at 2 am. Took longer to write when I planned because i struggled with the end and finally accepted that I was gonna need more than one chapter to completely tell Bakura and Yami's side of the story ^^'
> 
> The song Necropolis of Former Lovers was a huge inspiration for both this chapter and the dynamics of Bakura and Yami/Atemu's relationship, but after posting this prompt I realized the song Anastasia fit this particular part better, so Necropolis of Former Lovers will be the next one.
> 
> Song: Anatasia--Aurelio Voltaire

**Part III: Anastasia**

**I**

_There's a field of flowers and they smell like you_

_And I go walking through them when I feel you remember me_

_You know I'd love to pick one for my lapel, but you know_

_There are too many insects watching_

_I'm afraid they'd tell on me_

— _Anastasia,_ Aurelio Voltaire 

Yami stared at the stranger, stunned beyond words. “How the fucking hell do you know my name?” None but Yugi knew his real name. “What are you doing in _my_ house!” he demanded letting all his intimidation and rage bleed into his voice.

The stranger was not frightened, or even surprised. He looked...elated, _euphoric_. The way those dark burgundy eyes sparkled as they looked at him: like a blind man seeing for the first time, like a mad scientist who’d just discovered the true origin of the universe.

A smile slit his handsome face, revealing shiny white teeth and sharp, oh God help him, _fangs_ ! Laughter exploded from his chest and gut, a burst of blissful euphoria so loud and so lyrical it made Yami’s very bones shake--and his insides quiver was something that was not fear _or_ anger.

“Oh…my God!” The man beamed. An impossible smile brightened the entire contour of his face making the burnt ocher skin shimmer like melted chocolate. It intensified every curve and sharp angle of those chiseled cheekbones and the glint in those burgundy eyes all but burst into flames. “I have certainly missed _that_ look on your face!”

That voice: that deep, sartorial rasp, that low guttural rumble like thunder rolling in just before a storm, like the salacious promises of a whispering serpent. Yami _knew_ that voice. Knew it as surely as he knew his own name. And yet he could not recall where he had heard it, nor could he recall a name for it or give it a face.

The man laughed so hard his body shook with it. Throwing back the long, rigid curtain of his spiky hair, white and wild as a winter storm, he collapsed against the railing. The moonlight reflected off every detail of his toned chest, the muscles of his arms, the low V of his hips that disappeared into his tight pants. 

Dear God, the man was beautiful, so beautiful it terrified him and Yami found himself taking stumbling steps backward. The face he did not recognize and the voice he knew but not from where were so achingly familiar that it hurt to think.

And yet he steeled his expression: grit his teeth and hardened his eyes firing his expression and demanded. “I will _not_ ask again. _Who_ are _you_?” Nothing could’ve stopped the desperate bleeding edge from creeping into that threat.

The man looked down at him, fanged smile curling at the corners, garnet eyes glittering with absolute desire. “Do you _really_ not know?” He cocked his head to the side, playfully, absolutely _adoring_ the sheer and absolute rage transforming the beautiful boy’s face, the confused embers igniting in those ruby eyes, before they burst into raging flames of indignation.

By all the Gods, he had not changed a _bit._ Thank. _God_.

He shifted his expression towards the other end of the room, snickering at the two “younger” boys still together on that God Awful throne bringing shame to its memory and pissing off the ghost it belonged to who was no doubt rolling in his grave. “Making love in an open space?” He quirked a brow at Marik’s frozen blink. “When did you become so bold, Marik. Or rather, when did the waif?”

Yugi’s entire face suffused with color, a deep vermillion that transformed the horrified mask of his face just before he nose dived in Marik’s chest. The vampire was quick to comfort the boy by wrapping his arms around him and shooting Bakura a murderous glare in defense of his beloved’s honor. 

Somewhere in the whispered threats, Yami heard the name that snapped the locks: _Bakura_.

The action spurred Yami back into attention and he spun on his heels, glaring at his brother’s supposed kidnapper with a mixture of hate and murder, but his attention did not leave this new interloper for long. The interloper, the (dare he admit it to himself) vampire...this Bakura, pushed back from the banister and descended the balcony stairs with deliberately slow, swaggering steps. Each movement was a seduction: a shake of his hips, showing off that scandalous V, tempting the last of Yami’s resolve and adding fuel to his rebellion.

“I suggest you two make yourselves scarce.” The vampire spoke, all casual calm. “ _Princess_ , here, and I have _a lot_ to catch up on.” He fixed Yami with a sultry grin. Fury boiled Yami’s blood: the nickname causing a rise of irritation that seemed both annoyingly familiar and surprising in its impact, as it rolled off the man’s tongue with all the casual familiarity of an old friend. He could not understand _why_ exactly the nickname had bothered him so much, he’d been called far worse due his open sexuality. Yet the _way_ Bakura spoke it, had said it, awoke a familiarity in Yami that was more than just basic irritation or annoyance, something that was almost...exciting and...arousing? 

The hell was wrong with his treacherous body.

“Good idea,” the other vampire spoke breaking Yami of his stupor. He spun around just in time to witness the man scoop Yugi up like a bride and disappear in a whirl of shadows. Yami gasped with horror as the two evaporated into thin air and made a mad dive to grab his brother but his long fingers only caught air and he crashed over the arm of a chair with a sharp hiss of pain.

He ignored it and shot up, darting about the room, panic stricken and dumb struck screaming “Yugi! YUGI! What the?”

Hearing a snort, Yami whirled on him and exploded “Where the Hell did that bastard take my brother!”

The force of his fury sent a few of Bakura’s stray hairs fluttering backward but he did not flinch. His smile was that of a snake with a bird in its mouth. 

“Well,” he sang, gesturing absentmindedly with his fingers. “Knowing Marik as well as I do and given that your little brother is the reincarnation of his long lost dead lover, I imagine their going back to Marik’s...well, his _and_ Yugi’s old room, to, you know, fuck each other’s brains out, as I believe they’re calling it now.”

Yami exploded. “What!?”

“Oh, don’t feel jealous, kitten,” the vampire chucked with a leering smirk.

Yami shivered, not liking that look--or that glimmer--in his sparkling eyes: like fresh split blood. It was his only warning before the vampire appeared in front of him, their faces close, their lips a whisper’s breath apart, and as those burning eyes bore into his own, Yami immediately recognized the emotion blazing those eyes bright. 

Hunger. 

Rather, Hunger for _him._ “We’ll be putting them to shame soon enough.” 

Red exploded behind Yami’s eyes and he reeled back his fist charging. “You fucking asshole!” A well-aimed punch headed straight for the vampire’s unflinching smirk, furry guiding its accuracy.

The vampire dodged it easily and slipped between it. His smirk widening as his arrogant eyes burned into Yami’s stunned ones. Anger quickly replaced it: that smug snicker knowing _exactly_ how to push his buttons and wound up for another punch, but Bakura was quicker and caught this one easily, then squeezed. Yami hissed in pain but did not surrender.

An impressed brow arched above one slender, sparkling russet eye and without warning Yami found himself yanked forward. His other wrist grabbed, he let out a startled yelp as his back slammed against the wall—the vampire pinning him with his much larger body, wrists pinioned uselessly above his head. Shock more than the pain knocked the breath from Yami’s lungs.

A shiver of heat raced up his spine at the new position. His treacherous body suddenly becoming complaint as those hard hot muscles pressed against him and Yami could feel the man’s heat even through the material of his shirt. With a herculean effort, Yami swallowed his moan, but the vampire’s knowing, curling smile made it clear he had not hidden the act.

It spurred the boy’s temper into action and Yami _refused_ to surrender quietly. He thrashed, furiously yanking at his hands, bucking his hips and attempting to kick with his feet but those strong hips pinned him in place. Yami expelled a bestial hiss that morphed into a furious, frustrated growl, but the grip was like steel.

Still, he thrashed.

All the while the russet-eyed vampire triumphantly grinned, like a cat with a bowl of cream—and Yami was that cream. The look made Yami shiver and his stomach twisted with a vicious shock of hunger that left him temporarily immobile. Paralyzed, the vampire advanced on him, massaged his trapped wrists and whispered in his ear, low and salacious. “A man isn’t defeated when you have his neck, but when you have his hands.” It was like warm velvet caressing his ear: intimate and carnal. Yami had never felt so confused and terrified and turned-on in all his life, and yet the sudden arousal felt familiar. The rapid beating of his heart was not the rhythm of terror but of anticipation, arousal—and the familiarity of it terrified him more than he cared to admit.

Long fingers suddenly tucked under his chin, sharp little nails teasing him to lift his face and Yami found himself staring into bright, blood red eyes. Though the smugness remained it was but a mask for the primary emotion something deeper, kinder, almost like….affection?

That didn’t make any sense?

And then that voice returned, no longer arrogant but gentle…soft…admiring. “ _You_ taught me that,” The words rolled off his tongue, thick with admiration and adoration. His face leaning so close Yami could feel his breath brush against his skin, and the phantom touch was like a ghostly hand cupping his cheek. 

He shivered.

“Remember?” The sudden change in mood loosened his grip and he released Yami’s hip, but the boy remained frozen. His eyes locked on the vampire’s as one hand rose up to ghost over his hips, over the rim of his non-belted jeans where his tee-shirt rode up, the touch, freezing fire upon Yami’s skin. 

His heart thundered so loud he thought it might burst out of his ribcage. His legs subconsciously rose to brace his foot against the wall, steading him, giving him more balance.

The vampire chuckled, pleased and parted his smile. His lips hovering just above his.

Yami ceased the opportunity and, using the wall for momentum, slammed his knee straight into the vampire’s unprotected gut. Yami’s height and the position got in the way and he missed the man’s vulnerable groan but it was enough. The shock more than the pain sent Bakura whirling back. The opening was all the distraction Yami needed and he delivered a swift punch across the man’s jaw. 

Bakura reeled backward, groaning in pain with a loud, furious “Fuck!” as he hit the ground, coughed hard and struggled to steady himself against the wall. He shot up, growling—and looked right into Yami’s victoriously smirking face.

“Did you really think it was going to be that easy?” The teenager snorted as if in challenge and took off like a shot out of the ballroom, leaving the stunned vampire behind.

Needing a moment to process what just happened, Bakura’s snicker morphed into a swallowed snort then a full blown burst of triumphant, glorious laughter followed by a choked coughing fit and groan when the pain flared up his struck side. “Ugh, _every_ time.” He dragged himself off the floor, rolling his eyes at his own weakness and his own pride that even after all these centuries his Princess could still catch him off guard.

Still irk him with his stubbornness and pride.

Still seduce him with his temper and fiery eyes.

Still ignite a challenge that set his blood on fire.

The look of sheer confidence burning in his violet eyes spiked Bakura’s blood with arousal, the heat of it like a roaring dragon starving for a mate. Who was he to deny them both their hunger…

But not yet.

Something else had to be done first.

Shadows swirled at his feet, tendrils of darkness rising like writhing serpents eager to do his bidding. “Wake them up.” He commanded. “Have everything ready. We won’t be long.”

The shadows writhed and transformed, silent serpents snaking through the manor in obedience, eagerly tracking the movements of their master’s desired target.

A smile slit Bakura’s face, shadows curling all around him. “Soon, kitten. Very soon…” The promise was a declaration and a vow. “And no one will _ever_ take you away from me again!”

**II**

_Anastasia_

_Your disappearance is the thorn in my side_

_Anastasia_

_You know your absence is the thorn in my side_

_I think about you every night and every day_

_Every moment since you left here_

_You were the one that got away, as they say_

_Everyone has an Anastasia_

—Aurelio Voltaire, _Anastasia_

Yami burst out of the ballroom with a gasp of freedom and relief so strong he could’ve wept from it. The grand entrance doors glittered in the moonlight and shadows at the end of the foyer hall like the pearly gates of heaven.

Instead, he bolted up the steps. No way in hell was he leaving Yugi here alone with these psychos. They’d have a _long_ talk about his choice in one night stands later. 

He grabbed the banister post, took the steps two at a time, clearing the first floor, and swung his weight into the sharp turn of the third-floor landing, a gulp of air prepared to yell out Yugi’s name.

Instead, a scream exploded silently from his throat and it took all his strength to not to stumble in his haste to stop, nearly slipping and falling on his ass as he did. Bakura lounged at the top of the landing, lazy as a predatory cat and grinning. The fucking bastard even had the audacity to wave. Red exploded behind Yami’s eyes and he lunged like a hunting lion: claws and teeth outstretched, ready to tear the bastard apart.

He didn’t see the shadows slithering beneath the man’s fingers. Or feel them swirl around his ankles until the ground gave out from under him. Or rather the steps flattened into a slide. Yami barely had time to grasp the phenomenon before he hit the ground and started sliding in a roller coaster like rush. His anger vanished and transformed into a sceam of confusion and fear. Bakura burst out laughing and leapt after him, surfing the shadows with all the grace and elegance of a master.

Never one to be outdone, Yami rolled himself over and grabbed one of the banister beams and managed to swing his weight, projecting himself off the shadow slide and onto the second steps at the base of the landing. Despite the pain jolting up his spine when his back crashed into the steps, he didn’t hesitate. Rolling over, he bolted up the stairs, arms pumping at his sides and disappeared around the corner of the second floor, just as Bakura reached the ground level, half-heartedly cursing and still laughing that frustratingly seductive maniacal laugh.

Yami turned around and screeched when the vampire literally _flew_ through the air: his long hair fanned all around him like terrifying devil wings, his arms outstretched like a lover’s. 

Instead of outrunning him, Yami skidded to a stop and surprised the vampire once again by turning around and sprinting _towards_ his embrace. The man;s hope lasted only a second before his lover flashed a toothy, all-too-familiar grin and nose dived and rolled underneath Bakura and onto the safety of the opposite hall. The little brat even had the boldness to tap two fingers to his forehead, that wide impish smile, all teeth.

Caught completely off guard, Bakura’s gravitational flight veered off course in his shock and he was propelled into the floor and rolled until he crashed against the wall with a loud, fiery curse. 

A string of colorful language followed.

Yami snickered, triumphantly and took off again, calling out Yugi’s name and pushing open rooms, ignoring ones he knew were not bed rooms. Descending the steps back to the second floor, a cold realization suddenly hit him. _How_ did he know which rooms were not bed rooms? _How_ had he known the second staircase in the landing’s fork would take him to the third floor and that there was a third set at the end of the hall back to the second? He’d only seen blue prints of this place, he’d never actually stepped inside of it before this point? So _how_?

And yet…he knew. He _knew_ ! He _knew_ the rooms and the furnishings. He knew which towers were used for study and which ones he and Yugi used as quiet places to read and write and draw and try on clothes. Which ones were the most successful at hiding from their father on one of his rare trips here—and yet the stern, unscrupulous man he saw in his memory was not the loving, kind-hearted man who’d raised them and adored them all their lives. And yet he saw both men so clearly in his mind. The onslaught of it all was so fierce and powerful, the pain of it, like a hot iron spike and a cold spear piercing his mind over and over forced him to stop. He clutched his head, the duel memories splitting his mind and he grit his teeth in an effort to make it stop.

“Stop it!” he commanded, shaking. His eyes squeezed shut against the pain. Each memory was a needle ripping through his skin and there were thousands of them. The hallway spun around him. The chairs, the furnishing, the paintings, the doors and windows: all shimmered with vivid clarity, polished and colorful instead of dusted with age. 

He knew them. He _knew_ them.

Yami tore at his hair and screamed.

Overcome, he forgot everything else and ran down the stairs for the front doors. He needed to get out of this house, away from this place and away from here. Away from the ghosts and phantoms chasing him and bombarding him with memories of someone else’s life. 

Someone who was not him. 

He was Atemu Yami Sennen, he was _not_ the boy who’d lived here. _Not_ the boy who apparently _liked_ being chased by a vampire.

The front doors came blessedly into being and he nearly wept as his hand enclosed over the locks and pulled.

The door remained stubbornly shut. He yanked again. Harder. Nothing. He screamed, cursed and kicked when the handle did not budge. With a desperate shout, he threw his weight against it but the wood was strong, the bolts stubborn and the doors firm in their fortitude. He punched the ancient wood and it creaked under his knuckles but didn’t move.

The hiss of shadows swooped behind him and he whirled around. Swallowed another scream as he sensed them coming, slithering like snakes about the walls and floor like serpents tasting the air and searching. Knowing exactly what or rather _who_ they were searching for, Yami panicked, head swirling around before he dove into the first room he could find and locked the door.

**III**

_I kept your room just how you left it_

_There's not a toy out of place_

_Just in case the fates are kind and you come back someday_

_I don't want to live without my little Anastasia_

—Voltaire, _Anastasia_

Relaxing back against the door, he gasped as he took in the room: it was a small study or reading room, too small to be a library and yet the fireplace on the other side of the room sported two built-in bookshelves loaded with worn leather bound volumes of different sizes and subjects. The wear of their spines proved they had been well loved and well used. A small couch beneath the windows created the illusion of a window seat, and a large, plush Victorian armchair facing the fire with a small table to the side and burning braziers on the wall invoked a feeling of warmth and familiarity, a sense of comfort that blanketed the coldness that had seeped into his bones ever since their grandfather had died.

Yami imagined himself in this room: saw a cheery fire burning in that hearth, the soft flicking glows of the braziers like fireflies. Saw Yugi asleep on that couch curled up in one of his coats. Imagined himself sitting by that fire, in that chair, his favorite book in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other, or whisky or a cup of strong tea until he fell asleep with that book in his lap. Imagined that very image so many times. Saw it so clearly…

When the memory disappeared and the world rearranged itself back into the dimly lit room, Yami gasped, backed up and whirled around to run—and landed smack against a wall of warm muscle and solid flesh. No, not a wall, a chest—the chest of the vampire Bakura who was looking at him with eyes so warm and so familiar, it sent a shiver down Yami’s spine. He leapt way from him and to his surprise the vampire did nothing to stop him. Yami backed away slowly, and Bakura took a step towards him, matching his retreat step for step, unwilling to let the short distance between them increase.

“Do you remember this room, Princess?” His voice was deep, warm, whisky by the fire.

Yami backed away, the affection in that voice terrifying him more than anything else. The back of his legs hit the side and he dropped into the armchair. Hands slammed down on the arm rests pinning him. The vampire looming over him, leering into Yami’s frightened eyes, his lips a whisper’s breath away. “This is where we first met.”

Visions exploded behind Yami’s eyes: images and shadows visible only by moonlight, but the colors were muted and dulled, the faces shadowy and unreadable, like looking through muddy water. His eyes squeezed shut, desperate to both fight the onslaught of memory and for some form of clarity: the two warring in his mind.

A warm hand cupped the side of his face. His eyes popped open, the fog of uncertainty clearing completely. Yami starred up into deep russet red eyes so deep and achingly familiar that Yami’s heart wanted to weep, and he had no idea why.

And then the vampire leaned forward and kissed him.

Kissed him so tenderly that it broke his heart. Yami’s resolve shattered. He exhaled into the kiss and melted into the warm embrace. The vampire caught him, deepened the kiss, pulled away gently only to encompass Yami’s lips completely, tasted honey and spice and fire. Yami tasted salt and earth and finely-aged wine. Despite the actual gentleness of it, it was the most intense kiss he’d ever experienced.

Hands found his hips and wrapped around his lower back. Slide up his sides, cup the back of his head and wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer. The touch was so heartbreakingly warm, so achingly familiar, so intensely real…

Yami screamed and shoved him away, overcome with shock and terror. Tears of pure shock and overwhelming emotion stung his eyes but this time he did nothing to starch their flow. With one last terrified glance at the vampire who only stared at him, she shoved past him and ran.

**IV**

_And here the skies are neither day nor night_

_In this place where I close my eyes_

_It's like my skin would try so hard to hold it back_

_There's an explosion, it comes raining down_

_You smiled, you smiled at me_

—Voltaire, _Anastasia_

Blinded by tears, he ran through the anguish-hazed manor with no idea of his destination, yet his feet knew the way. Then he tripped, stumbled but he caught himself and landed on his knees. Air expelled from his lungs in thick, heavy hyperventilating pants like a drowning man surfacing. 

Subconsciously, he wiped away his tears with the back of his hands, his eyes clearing enough to recognize the checker patterned floor of the ballroom. 

The room had changed. It was darker, shadowed. Candelabras and pyramids of candles gave the room an eerie glow that danced off the windows like a world of dancing flames. That ghastly chair had been removed, replaced with what he could only describe as an altar covered by a white cloth and a fury of rich, red rose petals. As he stood, he saw a strange pattern drawn on the floor around the altar—a pentagram inside the circle with all manner of strange shapes and runes.

Terror paralyzing him in place, Yami took a hesitant step back.

The doors behind him slammed shut. Yami spun on his heel, dread and terror burning a hole in his stomach. Before he could move a loud swooping sound redirected his attention, he shot towards it and swallowed a scream. A group of hooded figures in black robes emerged from the shadows, of various heights and sizes, their faces obscured by long black hoods trimmed with red. Yami’s mind screamed at him to run but he was frozen. His skin erupted with gooseflesh and fear had become a living thing holding him still with sharp frozen claws.

He took another step back, intending to run. 

He did not get far.

Shadows shot from the ground, ensnared his wrists, slithered around his ankles and waist and torso like roots or snakes trapping him in a net of shadows. Survival instincts merged with adrenaline and panic and he struck out like a wild animal trapped in a bramble bush but the shadows were strong. More shot out rendering him immobile until he was encased in a cocoon of shadows. Just when he thought this was the end, the cocoon unfurled and like a butterfly he burst free from it. He landec with a thud—and gasped in absolute bewildered horror: his clothes had disappeared, replaced with the most beautiful black dress Yami had ever seen.

He didn’t care for dresses and drag than way Yugi did, but even he could not deny the loveliness of the ball gown: multiple layers of shimmering onyx satin and black lace pinned with cloth roses the deepest of reds formed the skirt, ripples of satin pulled tight around the bodice was pinned with a cloth rose at the heart with black lace forming the collar and trimming the boat neck. Long black bell sleeves were also trimmed with beautiful black lace with a rose embroidery, and the crown was a black veil with deep dark burgundy rose brocade. Beneath the skirt, Yami saw his sneakers had been replaced with long black velvet boots laced from anklet to mid-thigh and—just as he’d arrive having thrown on whatever he could grab in his desperate flight to find Yugi—nothing underneath. The whole thing invoked a regal gothic look, a Queen of Darkness who bowed to no one.

Yami fought the urge to blush. 

He shot up noticing the robbed figures approaching and leapt to his feet, spun on the heel of the boots with surprising speed, and lunged with so much strength he could not have stopped the force of it even if he’d wanted to--and right into Bakura’s awaiting arms. Bakura caught him easily, as Yami crashed against his chest. Gone was his earlier flaunted arrogance and crass flirting. The warmth of earlier fled from his face, now stoic and unreadable. His russet eyes betrayed no emotion, not a flicker of thought.

 _That_ terrified Yami more than anything else. So much so that his paralyzed body did nothing to stop Bakura from enveloping him in his arms, from slipping his arm beneath his knees, and scooping him up like a newlywed bride to her nuptial bed. Shadows curled around them both swallowing all of Yami’s screams before they unfroze and exited his body as sound.

“Don’t be afraid,” the vampire spoke at last, setting the petrified boy who clung to his arms with shaking hands upon the stone. His eyes silent and desperate for answers but receiving none. That final flicker of dying hope nearly broke the vampire’s resolve and he kissed the boy’s forehead. “We’re not going to hurt you. No one will _ever_ hurt you. Not as long as I _breathe_.”

The force of that single declaration was so strong, so powerful, so chilling in its pure and absolute promise that in that moment, Yami was certain Bakura would set the entire world on fire and watch it burn all for his sake. That single fact sent a shiver down his spine, but not one of fear.

Bakura stroked his cheek and whispered. “Now.”

From nowhere two of the robed figures came forward and seized Yami by the arms, pinning them to the stone table. Yami screeched and fought them wildly kicking out with his boots but their grip was too strong and his legs became tangled in the skirts. It did not stop him, he hissed and growled, cursed at Bakura, his face a furious mask of rage and betrayal.

Bakura did not flinch and instead barked an order in a language the boy did not understand.

Suddenly the other members began chanting, speaking terrifying words in some foreign language unknown to him. Yami turned to Bakura, his eyes begging for an explanation and this time the vampire smiled, a promise and a prayer. “All this will make sense soon,” he assured him, as flames of shadows danced and roses around him, tongues of black and purple fire licking at the air around him and the pentagram began to glow white and hot like a devouring star.

Bakura’s fingers suddenly traced strange symbols over his face and Yami felt a hot burning sensation from their touch, cooled by another press to his forehead. The chanting around them grew louder, the candles roaring to life like infernos exploding from hell, and Yami wanted so much to scream but he could not. The chanting grew louder. Shadows and flames danced over Yami’s skin and his forehead burned from Bakura’s kiss.

Light. Heat. Shadow. Light. Darkness. All of it surrounded him at once, spiraled together, shot into him and then…

"No one will _ever_ take you away from me again." Then Bakura kissed him.

**V**

_Anastasia_

_Little Anastasia_

_(I know you're out there, ah)_

_Your disappearance is the thorn in my side_

_Little Anastasia_

_(I know you're out there, ah)_

_And only you can take the thorn from my side_

—Voltaire, _Anastasia_

Yami’s eyes popped open.

And just like that, all the locks snapped. The cage of his memory imprisoned in the darkest corners of his mind shattered and the birds within it burst free filling his mind with clarity and color: images and faces that before he’d only seen through moonlight and shadow and only in his dreams. 

He remembered this place. 

He remembered this world. 

He remembered…

“Bakura,” the name came shakily to his lips and with it a flood of tears burst out of him. His captures released him and leapt back. Bakura was at his side in a moment, catching him as he sat up and all but collapsed, crying in the man’s arms.

“Atemu?” Bakura asked hesitantly, unsure if the boy still used that name.

“Yes,” Yami said, his voice shaking: a mixture of shock and relief. He cried out with a roar, loud with laughter and choked with tears. A roar of recognition and remembrance and joy and grief and heartbreaking love. “Yes, that’s my name. I haven’t used it for so long in this life, but that’s my name…I remember…” he wept and the tears spilt, rhinestone gems of joyful relief and rising hope. “Oh God, Bakura…I remember everything!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire idea was inspired by this image I found of Yami in this dress. Sadly I haven't been able to find it online so I can't post the full image...one day...
> 
> Necropolis of Former Lovers will be the next one, so check out how Yami and Bakura met, and for those of you disappointed this one wasn't as steamy as the libra ones, well...we'll get there ;)


End file.
